[Sidenote: Beza secures a favorable royal order.]

To restrain the impatience of so numerous a body as the Protestants,

while waiting for the assembly of the notables which was to confer the

full measure of liberty they desired, was the task imposed upon Beza. He

was to serve as a _hostage_ for the obedience of the reformed

churches.[1222] But the sagacious theologian recognized the difficulty

of the position he was called to fill. He warned the government

accordingly against disappointing the hopes it aroused in the breasts of

his fellow Protestants, and he urged that if they must be temporarily

denied the use of the places of worship which they had occupied wherever

they constituted the bulk of the population, the present rigor must be

somewhat abated during the interval before their formal emancipation.

After much importunity a mandate was obtained, addressed to the royal

officers, in which they were instructed to interpret the previous edicts

with leniency, permitting different degrees of liberty, according to the

various circumstances in which they were placed. In Normandy and Gascony

the religious meetings might be open and unrestricted. In Paris they

must be held secretly in private houses, and not more than two hundred

persons could be gathered together.[1223] Everywhere, however, the

Protestants were to be protected, and this was a great step gained. For

those very officers, whose task it had not unfrequently been to drag the

Huguenots to prison, were now constituted the guardians of their lives

and property.[1224]

[Sidenote: How to restrain Huguenot impetuosity.]

[Sidenote: Foix.]

[Sidenote: Chalons-sur-Marne.]

Yet, how to restrain the impetuosity, how to check the demands of the

multitudes recently converted to the reformed faith, how to induce them

to give up the churches where whole generations of their ancestors had

worshipped before them, and in which they believed that they had the

clearest right of property, and hand them over to a mere handful of

ignorant or interested persons who would not listen to reason or

Scripture--this was the problem that seemed even beyond the power of

Beza's wit to solve. The young vine, in whose branches the full sap of

spring was rapidly circulating, must have room for healthy growth. From

all parts of France the constant cry was for the Word of God and for

liberty. Although the number of daily attendants on Calvin's lectures

was roughly estimated at a thousand,[1225] it was impossible for Geneva

to supply the drafts made upon her, when there were three hundred

parishes, apparently in a single province, which had thrown off the

mass, but had as yet been unsuccessful in their quest of pastors;[1226]

when the history of hundreds of towns and villages was the counterpart

of the history of Foix, where, in two months, an infant church of

thirty or forty members had grown to have five or six hundred, and the

Protestant population was almost in the majority in the town, although

as yet, notwithstanding incessant efforts to obtain a pastor, the only

public service consisted of the repetition by a layman of the prayers

contained in the liturgy of Calvin[1227]--when many a minister met with

success similar to that which attended Pierre Fornelet, who could point

to fifteen villages in the vicinity of Chalons-sur-Marne, begging for

Huguenot pastors, and all this the fruit of seven weeks of apostolic

labours; and could record the fact that poor men and women flocked to

the city from a distance of seven or eight leagues, when they simply

heard that the Gospel was preached there[1228]--when it was estimated by

competent witnesses that from four to six thousand ministers could be

profitably employed within the bounds of the kingdom.[1229]

[Sidenote: Troyes.]

[Sidenote: Paris.]

In some places, by strenuous exertion, the ministers were successful in

persuading their flocks to refrain from overt acts tending to provoke

outbursts of hostility. At Troyes, in Champagne, a thousand persons

convened by day or by night, not summoned by the sound of bells, but

quietly notified by an "_advertisseur_" of the daily changing place of

meeting. Yet even there, on Sunday and on public holidays, the Huguenots

took pains to hold their "assemblee" in the open day, before the eyes of

their enemies.[1230] At Paris, the Protestants, compelled to go some

distance into the country for worship, on their return (Sunday, the

twelfth of October), found the gates closed against them, and were

attacked by a mob composed of the dregs of the populace. Many of their

number were killed or wounded. The assailants retreated when the

Huguenot gentry, with swords drawn, rallied for the defence of their

unarmed companions, whom they could not, however, guarantee from the

stones and other missiles hurled at them. For a few days the public

services were intermitted at the earnest request of the Prince of La

Roche-sur-Yon, in the interest of good order and to prevent

disturbance.[1231] But a month later the Huguenots assembled openly, and

in still greater numbers. On reaching the suburbs, the women were placed

in the centre, with the men who had come on foot around them, while

those who were mounted on horseback shielded the whole from attack. A

body of guards was posted by the prince in the immediate

neighborhood.[1232]

[Sidenote: Montpellier.]

[Sidenote: Churches visited and stripped.]

In the south of France the people were less easily curbed, and the

indiscretion or treachery of their enemies often furnished provocation

for acts which the sober judgment of their pastors refused to sanction.

The chapter of the cathedral of Montpellier, with the view of overawing

the city, had, in October, introduced a garrison into the commanding

Fort St. Pierre. On a Sunday (the nineteenth of October) the Protestants

laid siege, and on the succeeding day the chapter entered into a

composition with the citizens, by which the canons retained the liberty

of celebrating their services, but bound themselves to lay down their

arms and dismiss the soldiers they had called in. When, however, a

soldier, as he was leaving, drew a pistol and killed one of the

Protestants, the fury of the latter could not be repressed. They cried

that treacherous designs were on foot, and madly killed many of the

canons and their sympathizers. Then, directing their indignation against

the churches, where the doctrine that no faith need be kept with

heretics had been inculcated, they overturned in a few hours the work of

four or five centuries. The next day, of sixty churches and chapels in

Montpellier or its neighborhood, not one was open. Not a priest, not a

monk, dared to show his face. Yet this same excitable populace, which

had been wrought up to frenzy by a soldier's treacherous act, submitted

without resistance when, on the twentieth of November, Joyeuse, in the

king's name, published the obnoxious edict for the restitution of all

churches within twenty-four hours. The cathedral was given up, and the

services according to the rites of the reformed church were held in the

spacious "Ecole mage," until, by a new arrangement with the canons, the

Protestants were once more put in possession of two of the old

ecclesiastical edifices. Yet the edict did not arrest the rapid progress

of the new faith. The mass was not reinstated, and the small Roman

Catholic minority remained at home on the feast-days. Even the lowest

class of the population--elsewhere, from ignorance and prejudice, the

stronghold of the papal religion--here seemed to share in the universal

tendency, and, unfortunately, as a local chronicler, to whom we are

indebted for these particulars, informs us, took no better way of

testifying its devotion than by "mutilating sepulchral monuments,

unearthing the dead, and committing a thousand acts of folly." Carrying

their hatred of everything that reminded them of the period of judicial

abuse to the length of detesting even the insignia of office, the people

compelled the ministers of the law to doff their traditional square cap

and assume a hat such as was worn by the rest of the population.[1233]

Thus the strength of the reformatory current could be gauged by the mud

and rubbish which it tore from the banks on either side--an addition to

its bulk that contributed nothing to its power, while marring its purity

and sullying its fair antecedents. A class of persons attached

themselves to the Huguenot community that could not be brought into

subjection to the discipline instituted with such difficulty at Geneva.

It would seem invidious to lay their excesses to the account of the

Huguenot leaders, whether religious or political, since those excesses

met with the severe reprobation of the latter.[1234]

[Sidenote: The rein, and not the spur, needed.]

[Sidenote: Marriages and baptisms at court, "after the fashion of

Geneva."]

"Would that our friends might restrain themselves at least for two

months!" was the ejaculation of Beza, in view of the natural impatience

exhibited on all sides. "I fear our own party more than I do our

adversaries."[1235] The rein was needed, not the spur. When, instead of

two hundred persons, the Parisian assemblies of Huguenots often

consisted of six thousand, a fanatical populace, accustomed for a whole

generation to see the very suspicion of Lutheranism expiated in the

flames of the Place de Greve or of the Halles, could ill brook the sight

of such open gatherings for the reformed worship. How much greater the

popular indignation when it became known that Chancellor L'Hospital had

authorized _two_ places for public worship according to the rites of the

reformed churches, in the neighborhood of the Gate of St. Antoine and

the Gate of St. Marceau! Added to these palpable proofs of the court's

complicity with the heretics, was the no less scandalous fact that

marriages and baptisms, celebrated "after the fashion of Geneva," were

of frequent occurrence; that the nuptials of young De Rohan, cousin of

Antoine of Navarre, and Mademoiselle de Brabancon, niece of the Duchess

d'Etampes, had been performed on St. Michael's Day, and in the presence

of Conde and the Queen of Navarre, by Theodore Beza himself; and that in

a masquerade in the royal palace Charles the Ninth had worn a cap which

bore an unmistakable resemblance to a bishop's mitre![1236]

[Sidenote: Tanquerel's seditious declaration.]

While legate and nuncio labored to put an end to these hateful

manifestations by personal solicitation addressed to Catharine, to

Cardinal Chatillon, and others,[1237] the priests and monks were no less

active in stirring up the passions of the people to open resistance. In

the scholastic halls of the College de Harecourt, one Tanquerel, a

doctor of the Sorbonne, enunciated the dangerous maxim that "the Pope

can depose heretical kings and emperors." At this menacing declaration,

which, under a king in his minority and a regency divided in its

sentiments on religious questions, was much more than a theoretical

abstraction, the government took alarm. The Parliament of Paris

investigated the offence, and the doctrine of Tanquerel was severely

condemned. Tanquerel himself having fled from the city to avoid the

consequences of his rashness, the Dean of the Sorbonne was required, by

order of the supreme court, to utter in his name a solemn recantation in

the presence of the assembled theologians and of a committee of

parliament; and two theologians were deputed to St. Germain to beg the

king's forgiveness.[1238]

[Sidenote: Jean de Hans.]

The preachers were not behind the doctors in the use of seditious

language. They attacked the government and its entire policy; and one of

their number--Jean de Hans--while delivering Advent discourses in the

church of St. Barthelemi, in the very neighborhood of the palace, so

distinguished himself for the extravagance of his denunciations, that he

was arrested and carried off to the court at St. Germain. Yet such was

his well-known popularity with the Parisians, that it was found

necessary to effect his capture by a troop of forty armed men; and the

powerful intercession made in his behalf induced the government to

forget his disrespectful language respecting the princes, and to release

him after barely a week's imprisonment.[1239]

[Sidenote: Philip threatens to interfere in French affairs.]

[Sidenote: "A true defender of the faith."]

[Sidenote: Courteville's mission to Flanders.]

Unfortunately, Tanquerel's treasonable thesis and Hans's excited

declamation were not mere harmless speculations which might never be of

any practical importance to the state. The King of Spain had taken the

pains to inform the queen mother that he had fully made up his mind to

interfere in the affairs of France, and to enforce Catholic supremacy at

the point of the sword. She might accept or decline the offers of the

self-appointed champion of orthodoxy; _but, if she declined, he was

resolved none the less to afford his succor to any true friend of the

Church that chose to request it_. Timid and irresolute Catharine, who

desired to steer clear of the Scylla of Spanish intervention quite as

much as of the Charybdis of Huguenot supremacy, trembled for the

security of her unballasted bark. But the watchful old man who sat on

St. Peter's reputed seat was thrown into a paroxysm of delight. When the

Ambassador Vargas handed him a copy of the message his master had sent

to St. Germain, Pope Pius paused a moment, after he had read the

undisguised threat, then burst out with a flood of benedictions on the

head of the Spanish king. "There," he cried, "is a truly Catholic

prince, there a true defender of the faith! I expected no less of

him."[1240] And Philip intended to carry his menaces into effect. On the

twenty-fifth of October his secretary, Courteville, left Madrid,

ostensibly on a visit to his infirm father in Flanders, but in reality

intrusted with a very important commission, which, in an age when it was

no uncommon thing for a messenger to be waylaid and robbed of his

despatches, could scarcely be otherwise discharged. He was to make

diligent inquiries of Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, as

to the actual condition of the provinces, and the material support they

could give the undertaking upon which Philip has set his heart. While

passing through Paris he was to confide his dangerous secret to the

Ambassador Chantonnay, and instruct him to support any of the Roman

Catholic nobles that might show a disposition to rise,[1241] or to

instigate them to action by the promise of Philip's support. Neither

Margaret nor Chantonnay, however, could fulfil the monarch's desires.

The former thought that Philip had thrown away the golden opportunity by

failing to interfere while the question of Catharine's and Navarre's

claims to the administration was in dispute, and when the number of

sectaries was much smaller than at present; and by the time Courteville

reached Poissy, where Chantonnay was stopping, the assembled nobles had

dispersed to their homes, and the Guises were practically farther from

Paris than from Brussels. So the execution of Philip's plan, both

agreed, must be deferred for some time.[1242]

[Sidenote: The ill-starred Medici family.]

[Sidenote: The Venetian envoy's lugubrious account of France.]

It could not be denied that the situation was critical in the extreme.

Long-headed diplomatists of the conservative school shook their heads

ominously. They hinted that there might be only too much truth in the

current Catholic saying that the Medici family was destined to be fatal

to Christendom. Under Leo the Tenth Germany was lost to the papacy,

under Clement the Eighth England had apostatized, and now under Pius the

Fourth, a third Pope of the same ill-starred race, France was on the

brink of ruin. The king was a boy, without experience and without

authority, the council full of discord, the supreme power in the hands

of the queen, who, though sagacious, was yet only a woman, and both

timid and irresolute. The King of Navarre, while noble and gracious, was

a prince of little constancy and limited practice in government. The

people were in disorder and manifest division. Everywhere there were

seditious and insolent men, who, under the pretext of religion, had

disturbed the general peace, overturned customs and discipline, and put

in doubt the royal authority and the safety of all. Oh, that Philip the

Second had the courage of his father, or that Charles the Fifth had had

his son's glorious opportunity--_then would France be France no

longer_![1243] For just so certainly as the Spanish king was looked upon

with suspicion by the rulers, was he longed for by all that hated the

present state of things, and, most of all, by the prelates and the rest

of the Catholics, who knew not in what other quarter to look for

salvation.[1244]

[Sidenote: Romish complaints of Huguenot boldness.]

It was not possible that peace should long be maintained under such

circumstances. It could not be but that the Huguenots, conscious of

their growing numbers, confident of the near approach of the day when

their rights were to be formally recognized, and impatient of the

fetters with which their enemies still attempted to embarrass their

progress, would assert their rights from day to day with increasing

boldness. The priests and the rabble, on the other hand, regarded this

new courage with suspicion, and interpreted every action as springing

from insufferable insolence. They were on the watch to detect fresh

examples of Huguenot audacity. They complained of the numbers that

flocked to hear the reformed preachers, of the arms which some carried

for self-defence--a precaution not very astonishing in view of the

excited feelings of the Parisians and the frequent outbursts of their

fury, and still less extraordinary on the part of the "noblesse," who

were accustomed to wear a sword at all times. They went so far as to

assert that the Huguenot multitude usurped the entire pavement, and were

become so overbearing that they were ready to pick a quarrel with any

one that presumed "to look at them." A peaceable Catholic must needs, to

avoid abuse and hard blows, show more skill in getting out of their way

than he would in shunning a mad dog. The streets resounded with their

profane psalm-singing, and ill fared it with the unlucky wight that

ventured to remonstrate, or dared to find fault with their provoking use

of meat on the prohibited days. He was likely to have a broken head for

his pains, or be shut up in prison by judges who sympathized with the

"new doctrines."[1245] The court, however, more correctly ascribing the

disturbances that occurred on such occasions to the attacks made upon

the Protestants by their opponents, detached the "chevalier du guet"

and his archers to attend the meetings and to prevent the disturbance of

the worshippers on their way to and from the places assigned for the

Protestant services in the suburbs.

[Sidenote: The "tumult of Saint Medard."]

At length, on Saturday, the twenty-seventh of December, a serious

commotion took place. One of the two spots where Catharine, at the

chancellor's suggestion, had permitted the Huguenots of the capital to

meet for worship, was a spacious building on the southern side of the

Seine, outside the walls and not far from the gate of St. Marceau. It

bore the enigmatical designation of "Le Patriarche," derived--so

antiquarians alleged--from the circumstance that it had been built long

before by a patriarch of Alexandria expelled from his see by the

Moslems.[1246] Here a congregation of several thousand persons[1247] had

assembled in the afternoon. The introductory services over, the pastor,

Jean Malot, had been preaching for a quarter of an hour, when his sermon

was noisily interrupted. Separated from the "Patriarche" by a narrow

lane stood the parish church of Saint Medard. Under the pretext of

summoning the people to vespers, the priests had ordered all the bells

in the tower to be rung violently, and hoped by the din to put an end to

the heretical worship in the vicinity. Finding it impossible to make

himself heard, the minister endeavored to restrain his excited audience,

and after the singing of a psalm resumed his discourse. It was all in

vain: St. Medard's bells pealed out the tocsin, and the sound of the

discharge of fire-arms, and the crash of stones hurled from the belfry,

increased the confusion. Meanwhile two Protestants had quietly gone over

to the side door of the church, to request an abatement of the

interruption. Their civil request was answered with violence. One of the

men barely escaped with his life; the other, a deacon of the church, was

killed on the spot. Five or six royal archers, commanded by the provost,

Rouge-Oreille, next summoned the party within the church to desist, but

met with no better success. At length the people, now congregated around

the entrance, and subjected to a storm of missiles from the windows and

the tower, forced open the doors and entered the church. Here they

discovered the corpse of their murdered brother. The priests and

sacristans, though armed with swords and clubs, were soon driven to take

refuge in the belfry. In the struggle the ecclesiastics themselves

became iconoclasts, and, when their supply of less sacred implements ran

low, broke in pieces the images of saints, and rained the fragments upon

the Huguenot crowd. Finally a threat to set fire to the belfry put an

end at once to the ringing of the tocsin and to the holy shower.

Meantime the tumultous peals of St. Medard's bells had drawn to the spot

the "chevalier du guet," one Gabaston, who, on learning the

circumstances, promptly lent aid in quelling the disturbance, and

arrested a number of the leaders in the riotous proceedings. Yielding to

an injudicious impulse, the motley crowd of Huguenots and of persons who

had been attracted to the scene by the noise resolved to accompany the

prisoners to the "Petit Chatelet," and the march assumed the appearance

of a triumphal procession. Between Gabaston's troop of over two hundred

mounted and foot archers, and the detachment of Rouge-Oreille, walked a

band of unarmed Protestants, followed by the Roman Catholic prisoners,

many of them in their ecelesiastical dresses, and tied together two by

two. It was deemed little short of a miracle that the procession, even

with its escort of soldiery, should be suffered to enter the city and

pass through its densely crowded streets on a public holiday, without

being attacked by the intensely Roman Catholic populace.[1248]

Such was the famous "tumult of Saint Medard"--the result of a plan

adopted expressly to stir up the inveterate hostility of the Parisians

against the adherents of the Reformation, and to serve as the pretext

for demanding the prohibition of the Protestant "assemblies."[1249] The

popular explosion that had been expected instantly to follow the

application of the match was deferred until the morrow, when a rabble

such as the capital alone could pour forth gutted the interior of the

"_Patriarche_" and would have set it on fire, had it not been repulsed

by a small body of Huguenot gentlemen.[1250] The plot had proved

abortive; but it was the innocent victims and the friends of good order,

not the conspirators, who paid the penalty of the broken law. While the

priest of Saint Medard and his accomplices were promptly discharged,

without even a reprimand, Gabaston and one "Nez-d'Argent," royal

officers who had interfered to restore order, were executed by command

of parliament.[1251]

[Sidenote: Assembly of notables at St. Germain.]

About a week after the occurrence of the seditious disturbance just

narrated, the assembly of notables was convened at St. Germain (January,

1562). To this body it was proposed to refer the religious condition of

the realm, with the view of reaching some more definite and satisfactory

settlement than the "Edict of July," whose provisions had become a dead

letter before the ink with which they were written was dry.

[Sidenote: Chancellor L'Hospital's opening address.]

[Sidenote: Diversity of sentiment.]

[Sidenote: The nuncio's alarm and activity.]

The chancellor, who, according to custom, set forth at considerable

length the circumstances constraining the king, by his mother's advice,

to summon the representatives of his trusty parliaments, with the

highest lords of the kingdom, to give him their counsel, dwelt upon the

signal failure of all the measures of repression hitherto adopted, and

upon the necessity of finding other remedies for the public ills. He

disclaimed any intention on the king's part to introduce a discussion

respecting the two religions in order to settle their respective merits.

It was not to establish the faith, but to regulate the state, that they

were assembled. Those who were in no sense Christians might yet be

citizens; and, in leaving the Church, a man did not cease to be a good

subject of the king. "We can live in peace," he added, "with those who

do not observe the same ceremonies and usages, and we can apply to

ourselves the current saying: A wife's faults ought either to be cured

or to be endured."[1252] When the opinions of the members of the

assembly were successively given, the apprehensions entertained by the

Romish party, from the very initiation of the plan of the conference,

were seen to be well grounded.[1253] The orthodoxy of the sentiments of

the majority was by no means above suspicion. The nuncio, Santa Croce,

chronicles with alarm the preponderance of those who openly advocated

the adoption of lenient measures. It was evident that the Edict of July,

with its bloody policy, could command the votes of only a small

minority. The pontifical ambassador trembled lest the Protestants

should, after all, obtain the largest concessions. He was, consequently,

as despondent as ever his predecessor had been.[1254] But, more prudent

than the Bishop of Viterbo, he took pains to conceal his fears from the

eyes of the courtiers, lest he should furnish the Huguenots with fresh

means of influencing the wavering government. Accordingly, instead of

giving up everything as lost, he spared neither time nor money,

besieging the doors of the grandees who were believed to be true friends

of the Holy See, and entreating them to dismiss all intention of leaving

the court, and thus abandoning the field to their enemies.[1255] He even

sought an interview with Catharine de' Medici, and, in company with the

Spanish ambassador, offered her the united forces of the Pope and of

Philip to repress any disturbances that might arise from the adoption of

a course unpalatable to the Huguenots; and he returned from the audience

persuaded that "these preachers would obtain no churches, and would gain

nothing from the conference."[1256]

In this conclusion, however, the nuncio was but partially correct. It is

true that the small faction favoring an adherence to the old persecuting

policy succeeded, by uniting with the advocates of a limited

toleration, in defeating the project of the more liberal party;[1257]

but, as will be seen, it was by no means true that Protestantism gained

nothing by the results of the deliberations.

[Sidenote: The Edict of January.]

These results were embodied in the famous law which, from the

circumstance that it was signed on the seventeenth of January. 1562, is

known in history as the "_Edict of January_." It began by repealing the

provisional edict of the preceding July, because, in consequence of its

sweeping prohibition of all public and private assemblies, it had failed

of accomplishing the objects intended, as was clear from the more

aggravated seditions ensuing. It ordained that "those of the new

religion" should give up all the churches they had seized, and

prohibited them from building others, whether inside or outside of the

cities. But the cardinal prescription was that, while all assemblages

for the purpose of listening to preaching, either by day or by night,

were forbidden within the walled cities, the penalties should be

suspended "provisionally and until the determination of a general

council" in the case of unarmed gatherings for religious worship held by

day outside these limits. The Protestants, both on their way to their

services and on their return, were to be exempt from molestation on the

part of the royal magistrates, who were enjoined to punish all seditious

persons, whatever might be their religion. The ministers were commanded

to inquire carefully into the life and morals of those whom they

admitted to their communion, to permit royal officers to be present at

all their religious exercises, and to take a solemn oath before the

local magistrates to observe this ordinance, promising, at the same

time, to teach no doctrines at variance with the true word of God as

contained in the Nicene Creed and in the canonical books of the Old and

New Testaments. Inflammatory and insulting harangues were forbidden

alike to the Romish and the Protestant preachers. All seditious

combinations, the enrolment of troops, and the levy of money, were

prohibited; nor could even an ecclesiastical synod or consistory be held

without the previous consent of the royal officers and in their

presence.[1258]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots no longer outlaws.]

Such were the most important features of a law the promulgation of which

marks the termination of the first great period in the history of the

Huguenots of France--the period of persecution inflicted mainly

according to cruel legal ordinances and under the forms of judicial

procedure. From the moment of the publication of this charter--imperfect

and inadequate as it manifestly was--the Huguenots ceased to be outlaws,

and became, in the eye of the law, at least, a class entitled within

certain limits to the protection of the ministers of justice. Unhappily

for France, the solemn recognition of Protestant rights was scarcely

conceded by representatives of the entire nation before an attempt was

made by a desperate faction to annul and overturn it by intrigue and

violence. The next act in this remarkable drama is, therefore, the

inauguration of the period of _Civil War_, or of oppression exercised in

defiance of acknowledged rights and of the accepted principles of

equity--a lamentable period, in which every bloody contest originated in

the determination of the one party to circumscribe or destroy, and of

the other to maintain in its integrity the fundamental basis of

toleration laid down in the Edict of January.

END OF VOLUME I.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1108: La Place, 154; Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 230-234. To the

names mentioned in the text must be added the name of Jean de l'Espine,

who joined his brethren soon after their arrival at Poissy. He was a

Carmelite monk of high reputation for learning, who now, for the first

time, threw aside the cowl and subscribed to the reformed confession of

faith. For an interesting account of his conversion caused by conversing

with and witnessing the triumphant death of a Protestant, Jean Rabec,

executed April 24, 1556, see Ph. Vincent, Recherches sur les

commencements et premiers progres de la Ref. en la ville de la Rochelle,

1693, _apud_ Bulletin, ix. 30-32. The delegates of the churches were

more numerous than the ministers; there were twenty-two, according to

the Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 316; though the Abbe Bruslart (Mem. de

Conde, i. 51), swells the number to twenty-eight. The names of twelve,

representing twelve of the principal provinces, are given, with

variations, by two MSS. of the National Library of Paris (Dupuy Coll.,

vols. 309 and 641), see F. Bourquelot, notes to Mem. de Claude Haton, i.

155.]

[Footnote 1109: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, _apud_ Baum, ii., App. 61; La

Place, 158.]

[Footnote 1110: Beza, _ubi supra_. An engraving of the period,

reproduced by Montfaucon, affords a pleasant view of the quaint scene.]

[Footnote 1111: La Place, 157; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 314; De

Thou, iii. 65.]

[Footnote 1112: Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. 30, 1561, _ap._ Baum,

ii., App., 59.]

[Footnote 1113: The speeches of Charles and L'Hospital seem to have been

delivered before the introduction of Beza; cf. Hist. eccles. des eglises

ref., i. 316. Prof. Baum, following La Place, 157, and De Thou, iii.

65-67, represents them as having been delivered subsequently. Theodor

Beza, ii. 238.]

[Footnote 1114: La Place, 158; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 314, 315.

I have alluded to the fact, first noticed by Prof. Soldan, that De Thou

and others have placed here a speech which was in reality delivered five

or six weeks earlier; while not only they, but also the accurate La

Place and the author of the Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., have done

the same by the king's speech, and a rejoinder of Tournon to

L'Hospital's address.]

[Footnote 1115: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 316.]

[Footnote 1116: This interesting incident Prof. Baum discovered in a

fragmentary MS. in the remarkable collection of the late Col. Tronchin.

Theodor Beza, ii. 238. The text is thus given in the Bulletin xiii.

(1864) 284: "M. de Besze, entrant dans la conference de Poissy avec un

ministre de Geneve, un cardinal dit: _Voici les chiens de Geneve!_ M. de

Besze, l'ayant entendu, repondit: _Il est bien necessaire que, dans la

bergerie du Seigneur, il y ait des chiens pour abboyer contre les

loups._"]

[Footnote 1117: "Es sind auch die Cardinael, diewyl er geredt, mit

entdektem Houpt gestunden, und beede mal, diewyl sy gebaetet, hat sich

die alte Kuenigin niderglassen und mit gebaetet, der Kuenig aber ist bliben

still sitzen." Letter of Haller to Bullinger, Berne, Sept. 23, 1561,

_ap._ Baum, ii., App., 73.]

[Footnote 1118: Baum, ii. 245.]

[Footnote 1119: La Place, 159; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref. i. 316. The

current, but erroneous belief, that this confession was first composed

by Theodore Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy, has already been noticed. It

had been printed, as we have seen (_ante_, c. viii. p. 343), in the

Geneva Liturgy as early as in 1542; and earlier still in that of

Strasbourg. It was already the favorite of martyrs and confessors. Jean

Vernou, in 1515, recited it at the _estrapade_. "Verum antequam

mactaretur," says Jean Crespin, "preces ad Deum fudit, ita exorsus:

'Domine Deus et Pater omnipotens ego certe coram sacrosancta majestate

tua ex animo et syncere agnosco me peccatorem esse miserrimum,' et

caetera quae in precationum formula recitantur statim initio." The margin

reads: "Initium precum solennium Geneuae." Actiones et monimenta

martyrum, Genevae 1560, fol. 321.]

[Footnote 1120: La Place, 159; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 316.]

[Footnote 1121: "De Beze portant la parole pour tous les autres,

commenca et continua longuement sa remonstrance en assez doux termes, se

soumettant souventefois, si l'on montroit par la Sainte Escriture," etc.

Letter of Catharine de' Medici to the Bishop of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561,

_apud_ Le Laboureur, Add. Castelnau, i. 733.]

[Footnote 1122: "His solumodo verbis Cardinales atque Episcopi usque

adeo exasperati atque exacerbati sunt, ut in haec verba, orationem ipsius

interpellates, proruperint: _blasphemavit, blasphemavit Deum_! Sed eorum

adversis admurmurationibus D. Beza minime perturbatus, eodem vultu,"

etc. Letter of Joh.. Guil. Stuckius to Conrad Hubert, Sept. 18, 1561,

Baum, ii., App., 66.]

[Footnote 1123: "Da Beza eine schoene Oration gethon, darinn er kurtz

perstringiert alle strytigen Artikel, und als er letstlich kom uff den

Artikel von der Gegenwirtikeit Christi im Sacrament, und under anderm

gesagt das sige so veer von einander als der Himmel von der Erden,

habend die Sorbonischen angfangen _klopfen_, _ruetschen_, _brummlen_, das

nieman nuet mer moegen hoeren, dess die alte Koenigin uebel zufriden gsyn.

Dessgleichen auch der Cardinal von Lutringen und sy gheissen in Stille

losen, man werde sy doch hernach auch gutwilliklich verhoeren." Letter of

Haller to Bullinger, Sept. 25, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 73. "Cela fut

trouve si nouveau et estrange entre les prelats, que soubdain ils

commencerent tous a murmurer et faire un grand bruict; lequel toutesfois

estant aucunement appaise," etc. La Place, 167, 168. "Hic enim mussitare

Cardinales et Episcopi, et tantum non vestes scindere." Letter of Martyr

to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 12, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 63.]

[Footnote 1124: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 327.]

[Footnote 1125: Letter of Haller, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1126: The admirable speech of Theodore Beza is given word for

word by La Place, 159-167, and somewhat modernized by the Hist. eccles.

des egl. ref., i. 316-327. Cf. De Thou, iii. 67, 68; Castelnau, 1. iii.,

c. 4; Abbe Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 51; Letters of Stuck, Haller, and

Martyr, _ubi supra_. Summa eorum quae a die 22. Augusti usque ad 15.

Septembr. in aula regis Galliae acta sunt, _apud_ F. C. Schlosser, Leben

des Theodor de Beza und des Peter Martyr Vermili (Heidelberg, 1809),

Appendix, 355-359. Discours des Actes de Poissy, _ubi supra_, 652-657.]

[Footnote 1127: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 327; La Place, 168; De

Thou, iii. 68; Letter of Haller, _ubi supra_; Actes de Poissy, Recueil

des choses mem., 657, 658.]

[Footnote 1128: The response of the queen is concisely given by La

Place, the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., the Actes de Poissy, and De Thou

(_ubi supra_); but the graphic account upon which the text is based is

found in the letter of Haller to Bullinger, Sept. 25, 1561, which Prof.

Baum discovered at Zurich, and has published in the volume of documents

which figures as an appendix to the second volume of his extremely

valuable biography of Beza. It is superfluous for me to acknowledge

formally my obligations to this rich storehouse of original authorities,

since the frequent references that I have already made, and shall

doubtless have occasion for some time to make, to its separate

documents, will sufficiently attest the high estimate I place upon its

value. The correspondence of the reformers is always an important

commentary upon the contemporaneous history. In the present instance,

much of the most trustworthy information is derived from it. Prof.

Baum's own narrative is admirable (Book iv., c. 5).]

[Footnote 1129: "Car d'y proceder a present par la force," writes

Catharine de' Medici at this very time, "il s'y voit un si eminent

peril, pour estre ce mal penetre si avant comme il est, que je n'en suis

en sorte du monde conseillee par ceux qui aiment le repos de cet Estat."

Letter of Sept. 14th, _apud_ Le Laboureur, i. 734.]

[Footnote 1130: The testimony of Marc' Antonio Barbaro is the more

interesting from the reluctance he manifests to say any good of the

reformer, whom he blames for a great part of the progress of the

Huguenots in France. "E d'assai bello aspetto, _ma d'animo molto

brutto_, perciocche, oltra l'eresie sue, e sedizioso e pieno di vizii e

di scelerita, che non racconto per brevita. Ha vivo spirito, e ingegno

acuto, ma non e prudente, ne ha ponto di giudizio. Mostra d'esser

eloquente, perche parla assai con belle parole e prontamente," etc. Rel.

des Amb. Ven., i. 52.]

[Footnote 1131: "Ha operato tanto con la sua lingua, che non solamente

ha persuaso infiniti, massimamente dei nobili e grandi, ma e quasi

adorato da molti nel regno, i quali tengono nelle camere la figura sua."

Ib., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1132: So Calvin's eye saw in an instant, and he applauded

Beza's boldness. "Your speech is now before us," he wrote to Beza, Sept.

24th, "in which God wonderfully directed your mind and your tongue. The

testimony which stirred up the bile of the holy fathers could not but be

given, unless you had been willing basely to tergiversate and to expose

yourself to their taunts." "I wonder that they were thrown into

agitation respecting this matter alone, since they were not less

severely hit in other places. It is a stupid assertion that the

conference was broken off in consequence of this ground of offence. For

those who now, by rabidly laying hold of one ground, after a certain

fashion subscribe to the rest of the doctrine, would have found out a

hundred other grounds. This also has, therefore, turned out happily."

Calvini Epistolae, Opera, ix. 157.]

[Footnote 1133: To her ambassador in Germany, instructed to defend her

course in convening the conference, however, she purposely exaggerated

her indignation, and gave a different coloring to the facts of the case.

"Mais estant enfin (de Beze) tombe sur le fait de la Cene, il s'oublia

en une comparaison si absurde et tant offensive des oreilles de

l'assistance, que pen s'en fallut, que je ne luy imposasse silence, et

que je ne les renvoyasse tous, sans les laisser passer plus avant." She

accounts for the fact that she did not stop him, by noticing that he was

evidently near the end of his speech, and by the consideration that, "as

they are accustomed to take advantage of everything 'pour la

confirmation et persuasion de leur doctrine,' they would rather have

gained by such a command; and moreover, that those who had heard his

arguments would have gone away imbued with and persuaded of his

doctrine, without hearing the answer that might be made." Letter of

Cath. of Sept. 14th, _ubi supra_. Prof. Baum well remarks that "the last

words furnish the most irrefragable proof of the great and convincing

impression which the speech in general had made." Theod. Beza, ii. 263,

note.]

[Footnote 1134: It is inserted in La Place, 168, 169, and Hist. eccles.

des egl. ref., i. 328-330; De Thou, iii. (liv. 28) 69. Letter of Cath.,

_ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1135: "Would that he had been dumb, or that we had been deaf!"

the Cardinal of Lorraine is said to have exclaimed in the prelatic

consultation. La Place and Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., _ubi supra_; J.

de Serres, i. 273.]

[Footnote 1136: La Place, 170; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 330, 331,

where the protest is reproduced.]

[Footnote 1137: "Me excludere volebant adversarii, ne interessem,

tanquam hominem peregrinum. Regina tamen mater per Condaeum principem eo

ipso articulo, cum profisciscendum erat, evocavit et adesse voluit."

Letter of Martyr to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 19, 1561, Baum, ii.,

App., 67.]

[Footnote 1138: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 332.]

[Footnote 1139: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 332-348; La Place,

170-177; De Thou, iii. 70; J. de Serres, i. 273-280. The impression made

by the cardinal's speech upon his Romanist and Protestant hearers

differed widely. According to the Abbe Bruslart (Mem. de Conde, i. 52),

he spoke "en si bons et elegans termes, et d'une si bonne grace et

asseurance, que nos adversaires mesmes l'admiroient." Stuck makes him

speak "admodum inepte" (_ap._ Baum, ii., App., 66); while Beza writes:

"Nihil unquam audivi impudentius, nihil ineptius.... Caetera ejusmodi quae

certe mihi nauseam moverunt" (Ib., 63, 64). Peter Martyr judged more

leniently (Ib., 67, 68). It is, therefore, hardly likely that Beza said,

as Dr. Henry White alleges without referring to his authority (Massacre

of St. Bartholomew, 64); "Had I the Cardinal's eloquence I should hope

to convert half France."]

[Footnote 1140: La Place, 178; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., _ubi supra_;

Jean de Serres, i. 280; De Thou, iii. 71.]

[Footnote 1141: La Place, etc., _ubi supra_; J. de Serres, i. 281.]

[Footnote 1142: "Nobis certum est," says Beza in a letter of Sept. 17th,

"vel mox congredi vel protestatione facta discedere, si pergant diem de

die ducere." Baum, ii., App., 64.]

[Footnote 1143: "Quid novi sperare possim non video. Nempe vel ipsa

necessitas aliquid extorquebit, vel, quod Deus avertat, expectanda sunt

omnia belli civilis incommoda. Quotidie ex diversis regni partibus multa

ad nos tristia afferuntur in utramque partem, quoniam utrinque peccatur

plerisque locis." Letter of Beza, Sept. 17th, _ubi supra_. In a similar

strain Stuck writes on the next day: "In Gascony and Normandy scarcely

an image is any longer to be seen; masses have ceased to be said.

Undoubtedly, unless the liberty of preaching and hearing the Gospel with

impunity be granted, there is great reason to fear an intestine war."

Baum, ii., App., 67. Cf. Summa eorum, etc., _apud_ Schlosser, Leben des

Theodor de Beza, Anhang, 358, 359.]

[Footnote 1144: La Place, Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., Jean de Serres,

etc., _ubi supra_, Castelnau, l. iii., c. 4.]

[Footnote 1145: No wonder; the prelates had just solemnly decreed, as

Abbe Bruslart informs us (Mem. de Conde, i. 52): "Non erat congrediendum

cum his qui principia et fundamentum totius nostrae fidei et religionis

christianae negant." Not only so; but they had protested against the

heretics being heard, and had declared that _whoever conferred with them

would be excommunicated_! "Disants que ceux qui confereroient avec eux

seroient excommunies." The reader, if he cannot admire their

consistency, will certainly be struck with astonishment at the fortitude

of the prelates who, a few hours later, could bring themselves with so

little apparent trepidation under the highest censures of the Church.

Bruslart goes on to tell us that it was the Cardinal of Lorraine who

brought them into this dreadful condemnation, partly hoping to convert

the Huguenots, _partly to please Catharine de' Medici_!]

[Footnote 1146: "Mais ce ne fut pas en si grande compagnie

qu'auparavant. Car Messieurs les preslats croignoyent que le monde ne

fut infecte de nos heresies, qu'ils appellent." Letter of Beza to the

Elector Palatine, Oct. 3, 1861, Baum, ii., App., p. 88.]

[Footnote 1147: Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 311, 312.]

[Footnote 1148: Ib., _ubi supra_, Hist. eccles., i. 349. Letter of N.

des Gallars to the Bishop of London, Sept. 29th, Baum, ii., App., 80.]

[Footnote 1149: Beza's speech is given in full by La Place, 179-189;

Hist. eccl. des egl. ref., i. 350-362; and J. de Serres, i. 282-312. See

also De Thou, iii. 71, and N. des Gallars, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1150: "Et hoc quidem prorsus inepte, quia neque conquesti

eramus, neque quemquam poterat videri magis accusare, quam eum ipsum

[sc. Cardinal Loth.] cui accesserat advocatus." Letter of Beza, Sept.

27th, _apud_ Baum, ii., App., 75. It was Beza's firm belief that

D'Espense had been hired by Lorraine to compose his speech of the 16th

of September, as well as to defend him on the present occasion. He

therefore not inappositely calls him, in this letter to Calvin,

"conductitius Balaam."]

[Footnote 1151: La Place, 189, 190; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 364;

Jean de Serres, i. 315; Beza, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1152: La Place, 192; Jean de Serres, i. 321-323; Hist. eccles.

des egl. ref., i. 370; Beza to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 77; N. des

Gallars to the Bishop of London, ibid., 81; De Thou, iii. 73.]

[Footnote 1153: Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, _ubi supra_.

Besides permitting the communication of this information, the break in

the conferences (caused by the discovery, on Catharine's part, that the

majority of the prelates had resolved to submit a proposition respecting

the mass, drawn up in a strictly Romish sense--a refusal to sign which

they intended to take as the signal for declining to hold any further

intercourse with the Protestants) furnished an opportunity for Montluc,

Bishop of Valence--a prelate suspected of Protestant proclivities--and

Claude d'Espense, one of the most moderate of the theologians of the

Sorbonne, to meet privately, by request of Catharine de' Medici, with

Beza and Des Gallars. The result of their interview was the provisional

adoption of a declaration on the subject of the eucharist, which, though

undoubtedly Protestant in its natural import, was rejected by the rest

of the ministers as not sufficiently explicit. Hist. eccles. des egl.

ref., _ubi supra_. See a full account in Baum, Theodor Beza, ii.

342-344. They rightly judged that where there is essential discrepancy

of belief, little or nothing can be gained by cloaking it in ambiguous

expressions.]

[Footnote 1154: Beza's address is inserted in La Place, 193-196; Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., i. 371, etc. See also De Thou, iii. (liv.

xxviii.), 74; letters of Beza to Calvin, and N. des Gallars to the

Bishop of London, _ubi supra_; Jean de Serres, i. 327, etc.]

[Footnote 1155: La Place, De Thou, letters of Beza, and des Gallars,

etc., _ubi supra_. "Comme si les feu rois Francois le grand, Henry le

debonnaire, Francois dernier decede, et Charles a present regnant (et

faisoit sonner ces mots autant qu'il pouvoit) avoient ete tyrans et

simoniacles." Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 375.]

[Footnote 1156: La Place, Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., etc., _ubi

supra_. Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii.,

App., 88, 89.]

[Footnote 1157: Because he was not sufficiently familiar with French,

according to La Place, 197 (ne scachant parler francois); and in order

to make himself better understood by the queen "ut a regina intelligi

posset," than he would have been had he spoken in Latin. Letter of Beza,

Baum, ii., App., 79. "D'Espense," says La Place _ubi supra_, "lors donna

ceste louange audict Martyr, qu'il n'y avoit eu homme de ce temps qui si

amplement et avec telle erudition eust escript du faict du sacrement que

luy."]

[Footnote 1158: Although Lainez spoke in Italian (see Baum, ii. 363), it

is needless to say that the Cardinal of Lorraine made no objection to

the use of a language which, it may be added, he understood perfectly.

The reader may see some reason in the summary of Lainez's speech given

in the text, for dissenting from the remark of MM. Oimber et Danjou, iv.

34, note: "Il [Lainez] fit entendre dans le colloque de Poissy, des

_paroles de paix et de conciliation_."]

[Footnote 1159: "I said," writes Beza, in giving an account of his brief

reply to Lainez, "that I would concede all the Spaniard's assertions

when he proved them. As to his statement that we were foxes, and

serpents, and apes, _we no more believed it than we believed in

transubstantiation_." Letter to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 79.]

[Footnote 1160: La Place, 198; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 377-379;

Jean de Serres, i. 335-339; Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, Baum,

ii., App., 79.]

[Footnote 1161: "Qui prae ceteris doctrina et ingenio, atque etiam

moderatione praestare existimantur." Letter of N. des Gallars, _ubi

supra_, 82. "Gens doctes et traictables." Letter of Beza to the Elector

Palatine, ibid., 90.]

[Footnote 1162: _Ante_, p. 475.]

[Footnote 1163: "Fateor equidem (nec causa est cur id negem) _falsam

istam doctrinam_, non tam fortasse aperte, quam ipsi facere soletis,

confutasse: Babylonem tamen cum cuniculis, tum aperto etiam marte, ut

res et tempus ferebat, ita semper oppugnavi, ut noster iste in eo genere

conatus optimo cuique semper probaretur." Letter of Salignac to Calvin,

Calvini Opera, ix. 163, 164. Calvin (probably, as Prof. Baum remarks, at

Beza's suggestion) wrote to Salignac, about a month after the

termination of the Colloquy of Poissy, a respectful but extremely frank

letter, in which he urged him to espouse with decision the cause he

secretly advocated. He reminded him that it was no mean honor to have

been among the first fruits of the revival of truth in France. He urged

him to put an end to his inordinate hesitation, by the consideration of

the number of those who were still vacillating, but who would forthwith

imitate his example if he forsook the enemy's camp for the fold of

Christ. Letter of Calvin to Salignac, Nov. 19, 1561, Calvini Opera, ix.

163; Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), iv. 239-241. Salignac's reply, from

which the extract given above is taken, is characteristic of the

man--less conscious of his weakness than Gerard Roussel, but equally

faint-hearted. See also Baum, ii. 387, 388.]

[Footnote 1164: See Prof. Baum's graphic account, ii. 390-392. The next

day Martyr wrote out and presented a fuller statement of his belief,

which is inserted among the documents of Baum, ii., App., 84, 85.]

[Footnote 1165: "En tant que la foy rend les choses promises presentes,

et que la foy prent veritablement le corps et le sang de nostre Seigneur

Jesus-Christ, par la vertu du Sainct-Esprit; en cest esgard nous

confessons la presence du corps et du sang d'iceluy en la saincte cene,

en laquelle il nous presente, donne et exhibe veritablement la substance

de son corps et sang, par l'operation de son Sainct-Esprit; y recevons

et mangeons spirituellement et par foy," etc. Mem. de Conde, i. 55; La

Place, 199; Jean de Serres, i. 340. Letter of Des Gallars, Baum, ii.,

App., 83.]

[Footnote 1166: "Nous confessons que Jesus-Christ en sa cene nous

presente, donne et exhibe veritablement la substance de son corps et de

son sang par l'operation du Sainct-Esprist; et que nous recevons et

mangeons spirituellement et par foy ce propre corps, qui est mort pour

nous, pour estre os de ses os, et chair de sa chair, a fin d'en estre

vivifie, et percevoir tout ce qui est requis a nostre salut. Et pour ce

que la foy appuyee sur la parolle de Dieu fait et rend presentes les

choses prises, et que par ceste foy nous prenons vrayement et de faict

le vray et naturel corps et sang de nostre Seigneur par la vertu du

Sainct-Esprit, en cest esgard nous confessons la presence du corps et

sang d'iceluy en sa saincte cene." La Place, 199; J. de Serres, i. 341.

Letter of des Gallars, _ubi supra_, 83, 84; Languet, Epist. secr., ii.

148; Mem. de Conde, i. 55.]

[Footnote 1167: Letter of Beza, Oct. 3d and 4th, Baum, ii., App., 93;

Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 382.]

[Footnote 1168: "Peutetre qu'il pensait dire vrai," shrewdly observes

the author of the Hist. des eglises reformees (i. 382), "_n'ayant jamais

le loisir telles gens de bien penser, s'ils croient ou non, ni a ce

qu'ils pensent croire_."]

[Footnote 1169: Letter of N. des Gallars, _ubi supra_, 84: "Quum hanc

formam legisset Cardinalis, mire approbavit, ac laetatus est quasi ad

ejus castra transissemus."]

[Footnote 1170: "Intelligimus etiam ipsos a suis objurgari quasi

sentiant nobiscum aut colludant." Letter of N. des Gallars, Oct. 6th,

_ubi supra_. See also letter of Beza, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii., App., 94.]

[Footnote 1171: The most extended and accurate view of the Colloquy of

Poissy is afforded by Prof. Baum, who has consecrated to it two hundred

and fifty pages of the second volume of his masterly biography of Beza

(pp. 168-419). The correspondence of Beza and others that were present

at the colloquy, collected by Prof. Baum in the supplementary volume of

documents (published in 1852), and the detailed accounts of the Histoire

eccles. des egl. ref, of La Place (Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et

republique, which here terminate), and of Jean de Serres, who, in this

part of his history, does little more than translate La Place, are the

most important sources of authentic information. Castelnau's account of

the colloquy (1. iii., c. 4) is remarkably incorrect. He makes the ten

delegates confer together for _three months_, without agreeing on a

single point, and finally separate on the 25th of November. Davila is

brief and unsatisfactory (pp. 50, 51).]

[Footnote 1172: From what Martyr wrote to the magistrates of Zurich

(Oct. 17th) respecting the conduct of the bishops in connection with the

subscription to the canons, it would appear that the close of the

prelatic assembly did not disgrace the amenities of the debates at its

commencement (see _ante_, p. 499): "Accidit mira Dei providentia, ut

repente inter episcopos, qui erant Poysiaci, tam grave dissidium ortum

fuerit, ut fere ad manus venerint, imo, ut homines fide digni affirmant

res _ut pugnis et unguibus_ est acta." Baum, ii., App., 107. See also

the extract from Martyr's letter of the same date to Bullinger, cited by

Prof. Baum, ii. 401, note.]

[Footnote 1173: Histoire eccles., i. 383-405. See Baum, ii. 399-401.]

[Footnote 1174: The vote was, according to Beza's letter of Oct. 21st,

sixteen millions of francs with interest within six years (Baum, ii.,

App. 109); according to the Journal of Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 53,

within twelve years. Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich,

i. 512, 513, gives the details of the famous "Contract of Poissy." It

must be admitted that both nobles and people were ready enough with

plans for paying off the national indebtedness _out of the property of

the Church_. These generous economists found that, according to the

ancient customs, one-third of the ecclesiastical revenues ought to be

employed for the support of the clergy, one-third to be given to the

poor, and the remaining third expended in keeping the sacred edifices in

repair. They proposed, therefore, to relieve the clergy of the latter

two-thirds of their possessions, and apply them to the extinction of the

royal debt, assuming that the nation would maintain the churches in

better condition, and feed the poor more effectively than had ever been

done hitherto! Languet, Letter of Aug. 17th, Epist. secr., ii. 136.]

[Footnote 1175: Baum, ii. 408.]

[Footnote 1176: Oct. 20th, according to Recueil des anc. lois franc.,

xiv. 122.]

[Footnote 1177: Text of the edict in Mem. de Conde, ii. 520-528 (De

Thou, iii. 99, following the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., erroneously

gives the date as Nov. 3d); Letter of Beza, Oct. 21st, Baum, ii., App.,

109; Letter of Martyr, Oct. 17th, ibid., 107.]

[Footnote 1178: Beza, _ubi supra_; Car. Joinvillaeus, Nov. 5th, Baum,

ii., App., 123.]

[Footnote 1179: Oct. 19th, according to Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 59.

According to La Place, the assembly of the prelates did not break up

until the 30th of October, after a session of about three months: "Et le

trentiesme dudict mois ... fut ainsi finie ladicte assemblee, sans

apporter autre fruict, apres avoir este toutesfois assembles [les

prelats] par l'espace de trois mois ou environ." (Page 201.)]

[Footnote 1180: "De fait," wrote Calvin of the Augsburg Confession,

"elle est _si maigrement bastie, si molle et si obscure_, qu'on ne s'y

sauroit arrester." Letter to Beza, Sept. 24, 1561. Bonnet, Lettres

franc., ii. 428; Baum, ii., App., 70.]

[Footnote 1181: The account of the occasion of the mission of delegates

from Germany, given in the text, is based on Soldan, Gesch. des Prot, in

Frankreich, i. 531-537. He has, I think, sufficiently demonstrated the

inaccuracy of the ordinary story (accepted even by Prof. Baum, Theod.

Beza, ii. 370, 419, etc.), which attributes their advent chiefly, if not

wholly, to the desire of Lorraine. It is said that, after hearing Beza's

speech of the ninth of September, the cardinal sought to obtain, through

the instrumentality of the Marshal de Vieilleville, at Metz, and his

salaried spy Rascalon, at Heidelberg, some decided Lutherans, to be

employed in bringing the Protestants at Poissy into contempt, through

the wrangling of their theologians with those of Germany. See the Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., etc. Yet it is not improbable, as La Place,

Commentaires, 200, seems to hint that Navarre's project was maliciously

countenanced by the Cardinal of Lorraine. But the circumstance that, of

the _five_ German theologians, not less than _two_ were opposed to the

Augsburg Confession, proves conclusively that they could not have been

despatched with the view of helping the cardinal out in his attempt.

Bossuet's admiration of the prelate's sagacity, in thus seeking to give

a brilliant demonstration of the variations of doctrine among

Protestants, certainly seems to be wasted.]

[Footnote 1182: _Ante_, c. xi., p. 493.]

[Footnote 1183: See the list of the twenty members of the council, in

Recueil des anc. lois franc., xiv. 55, 56.]

[Footnote 1184: See Baum, ii. 215.]

[Footnote 1185: "Affulserat aliqua spes concordiae, sed Legatus

Pontificius, i. e., Cardinalis Ferrariensis omnia perturbavit." Letter

of Martyr to the magistrates of Zurich, Oct. 17, 1561, Baum, ii., App.,

108.]

[Footnote 1186: "Quique ingenio, eloquentia, _artificio_ plurimum

valebat." Prosp. Santacrucii, Comment de civil. Galliae dissen., 1461.]

[Footnote 1187: "Ne ipse exequiis, ut dicebat, illius regni interesset."

Ibid., _ubi supra_. Somewhat maliciously Santa Croce suggests that

Gualtieri was all the more reluctant to remain after he heard of the

creation of nineteen new cardinals, and learned that his own name was

not included in the list.]

[Footnote 1188: "Angebatur interea Romae gravissimis curis Pius pontifex,

quod nec quae legati fecissent satis probaret, et in dies malum magis

serpere, omniaque remedia minus juvare audiebat." Ib., 1462.]

[Footnote 1189: He was described to the Pope by his secretary, Prosper

himself tells us, as "virum exercitatum, magni animi, multarum

literarum, eloquentem, magnaeque apud Gallos auctoritatis," having

obtained great familiarity with French affairs when nuncio in Henry the

Second's lifetime. Ib., 1463.]

[Footnote 1190: "Non tam ut numerus legatorum, quam ut plus auctoritatis

legatio haberet, si ab ipsius (ut dicunt) pontificis latere legatus

discederet ... quasi aliorum legatorum creatio, quod erant jam in

Gallia, neque Roma proficiscerentur, non satis diligenter curare

negotium diceretur." Ib., 1462.]

[Footnote 1191: "Grande hombre de entretenimientos y de encantar."

Vargas calls him. Letter to Granvelle, Nov. 15, 1561, Papiers d'etat du

card. de Granvelle, vi. 416.]

[Footnote 1192: "Diess waren zwoelf gewiss maechtige Gruende," etc. Baum,

ii. 302; La Place, 153; Marc' Ant. Barbaro, Rel. des Amb. Ven., ii. 86.]

[Footnote 1193: "Multum inde auri reportaturus existimetur, si ibi annum

vel biennium communi omnium more transigat." Santacrucii, de civil.

Galliae diss. comment., 1464.]

[Footnote 1194: That is, excepting the cardinal's hat, which his friends

informed him would be the reward of his services in France. Ibid., _ubi

supra_.]

[Footnote 1195: Ibid., 1462, 1463, 1465.]

[Footnote 1196: Ibid., 1465.]

[Footnote 1197: "Lugduno hucusque omnes fere declinavit urbes in

itinere, ut quae jam habeant Ministros, et ideo irrisiones extimuerit."

Letter of Peter Martyr, Sept. 19th, Baum, ii., App., 68.]

[Footnote 1198: "These artifices," wrote Languet from Paris at the time,

"impose upon no one; and especially from this man, who is very well

known here, who heretofore has surpassed even the highest princes in the

luxury and splendor of his mode of life, and of whose utter want of

knowledge of letters no one is ignorant." Letter of Sept. 20, 1561,

Epist. secr., ii. 140.]

[Footnote 1199: La Place, 153.]

[Footnote 1200: Ibid., _ubi supra_; Baum, ii. 305.]

[Footnote 1201: Letter of the ambassador, Hurault de Bois-Taille, July

12, 1561, Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 729. Hurault, however,

suspected that some mischief, which time would reveal, lay concealed

under this outward show of complaisance.]

[Footnote 1202: La Place, 153.]

[Footnote 1203: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1204: Compare Baum, ii. 302, 303.]

[Footnote 1205: Santacrucii, de civil. Galliae diss. com., 1465: "Quod

mirum in modum oderat episcopi Viterbensis et mores agrestes, et naturam

subacerbam, semperque, ut diximus, male ominantem." Vargas, viewing the

same personage from another point, was far more complimentary. Papiers

d'etat du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 404, 405.]

[Footnote 1206: Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Relations des Ambassadeurs

Venitiens, ii. 88; Letter of Santa Croce, Poissy, Nov. 15, 1561, Lettres

anecdotes ecrites au card. Borromee par Prosper de Sainte-Croix, nonce

du pape Pie IV. aupres de Catherine de Medicis, 1561-1565. (Aymon, Tous

les synodes nat. (1710), i. 15.) Vargas, Spanish ambassador at the papal

court, who feared that the legate might be induced to lend his influence

to Navarre's scheme for procuring a restitution of his wife's domains,

or an equivalent for them, besieged the pontiff with accounts of his

scandalous intimacy with French heretics of rank. "Repetile lo que otras

vezes le havia dicho, y con quanto escandolo y ofension de la religion

se tractava en Francia, estrechandose en amistad con Vandoma y almirante

Chatiglon, obispo de Valencia, y los demas principales hereges, con gran

desconsuelo y desfavor de los catholicos; y de como no era hombre apto

para una legacion semejante," etc. He accused him of already aiming at

the pontifical see, as if it were now vacant, and urged his immediate

recall. Letter of Vargas to Philip II. from Rome, Nov. 7, 1561; Papiers

d'etat du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 403, 404; see also pp. 405, 406.]

[Footnote 1207: Examine the curious passage in Santacrucii, de civil.

Galliae diss. comment., 1470, 1471.]

[Footnote 1208: See the correspondence of Vargas with Philip II.

(letters of Sept. 30, Oct. 3 and 7, 1561), Papiers d'etat du card.

Granvelle, vi. 342, 372, and 380; De Thou, iii. 78, 79; or the very full

account of Prof. Soldan, i. 515-521.]

[Footnote 1209: Rel. di Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Rel. des Amb. Ven., ii.

88, 89. "E proceduto esso ambasciatore con la regina e Navarra con

parole quasi sempre aspre e severe, minacciando di guerra dal canto del

re suo, et dicendo in faccia alle lor maesta parole assai gagliarde e

pungenti, e levando al re di Navarra del tutto la speranza della

ricompensa, stando le cose in quei termini, et ponendoli inanzi

l'inimicizia di Filippo."]

[Footnote 1210: "Etenim si de ilia (spe) ejiceretur dubium non erat,

quin se totum ad Calvinistas converteret, et qui cum pudore ac

simultatione illis favebat, perfricta fronte eorum sectam ita

promoveret, ut brevissimo tempore totum Galliae regnum occuparet."

Sanctacrucii, de civ. Gall. diss. comment., 1471.]

[Footnote 1211: Ibid., 1473.]

[Footnote 1212: Santacrucii, de civ. Galliae diss. com., 1472, 1473. That

the whole affair was planned in deceit and treachery, is patent not only

from Santa Croce's account both in his letters and in his systematic

treatise, but from the whole of the Vargas correspondence. Even when the

Pope--much to the ambassador's disgust--thought of complying with

Antoine's request to intercede with Philip for some indemnification for

the loss of the kingdom of Navarre, he took the pains to explain that

his urgency would not amount to importunity, much less to a command; his

aim was only to feed Antoine with false hopes while France was in so

precarious a situation: "esto seria por cumplir con Vandome y

entretenerle, por estar Francia en los terminos en que esta," etc.

Papiers d'etat du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 344.]

[Footnote 1213: De Thou, iii. 78, 79.]

[Footnote 1214: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 419 (the author of

which, however, erroneously gives the end of November as the date of

their departure); Jean de Serres, Commentarii de statu relig. et

reipubl., i. 345 (who makes the same mistake); De Thou, iii. 99. "Cur

autem aliquid adhuc spei habeam, illud etiam in causa est quod _nudius

tertius_ Guisiani omnes serio discesserunt, omnibus bonis invisi, ac

plerisque etiam malis. Abiit quoque Turnonius et Conestabilis....

Probabile est aliquid simul moliri, sed tamen incerto eventu. De hoc

intra paucos dies certi erimus, utinam ne nostro malo." Letter of Beza

to Calvin, Oct. 21, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 110.]

[Footnote 1215: That the Huguenots were about this time as sanguine as

their opponents were despondent, may be seen from the prediction of

Languet (letter of October 9th), that unless the opposite party

precipitated a war within two or three months, everything would be safe;

so great would be the accession of strength that the reformers would

actually be the strongest. At court everything tended in that direction,

and the queen mother herself was not likely to try to stem the current.

Martyr, it was reported, had several times brought tears to her eyes,

when conversing with her. "However," dryly observes the diplomatist, "I

am not over-credulous in these matters." Epist. secr., ii. 145.]

[Footnote 1216: Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, Paris, November 26,

1561, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 1217: Others besides Jeanne were apprehensive. The Viscount de

Gruz, in his memorial to Queen Elizabeth (Sept. 24, 1561), stated that

the king's constitution was so bad that he was not likely to live long,

for he ate and slept very little. His brothers were equally infirm in

health. Monsieur D'Orleans had a very bad cough, and the physicians

feared that he had the disease of his late brother, Francis; while

Monsieur D'Anjou had been ill for more than a year, and was dying from

day to day. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 1218: Letters of Beza, Oct. 21st and Nov. 4th, _ubi supra_.

"Tantum abest ut impetrarim (abeundi facultatem) ut etiam regina ipsa me

accersitum expresse rogarit ut saltem ad tempus manerem."]

[Footnote 1219: "Nam ex singulis parlamentis duo huc evocantur ad diem

decembris vicesimum," etc. Beza to Calvin, Oct. 30, Baum, ii., App.,

117; Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i. 418.]

[Footnote 1220: "Je ny voulu faillir de vous advertir," writes the

Prince of Conde in an autograph postscript of a letter (of Oct. 10th)

thanking the magistrates of Zurich for Martyr's visit to France, "des

entreprinses des Seigneurs de Guyse et de Nemours, ennemys de la vraye

religion, qui, voyants que soub le regne du roy de France, le regne de

Jesus Christ sestoit tellement advance que facillement lon pouvoit

appercepvoir que la tyrannie de Lantechrist de Romme seroit en brief

totallement dechassee du dit pays, apres sestre bande du coste du Roy

d'Espaigne, pour maintenir la dicte tyrannie papale delibererent de

desrober et emmener en Espaigne, au Roy Phelippe, le second fils de

France monsieur d'Orleans, esperans que soub le nom du dit jeusne prince

frere du Roy ils auroient occasion de faire la guerre en France et

contre les Evangelistes, estimans que bientost le pape donneroit le

royaulme de France au premier occupant selon sa Tyrannique coustume,"

etc. Baum, ii., App., 102, 103. Nemours, after his conspiracy was

discovered, fled from court. He wrote, however, disclaiming any ulterior

object in his invitations to the young Prince of Orleans, to whom he had

in jest proposed to go with him to Spain.]

[Footnote 1221: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 419-421. Cf. Beza to

Calvin, Nov. 4th, Baum, ii., App., 120.]

[Footnote 1222: Letter of Beza, Nov. 4th, _ubi supra_; "Regina nescio

quo modo libenter me videt, quod est apud multos testata, et re ipsa sum

expertus. Ideo cupiunt nostri proceres me his manere, quasi fidei et

obedientias nostrarum Ecclesiarum obsidem tantisper dum in futuro illo

conventu aliquid certi constituatur, et ipsi conventui me volunt

interesse."]

[Footnote 1223: Beza's letters, _apud_ Baum, ii., App., 117, 121, 122;

Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 418.]

[Footnote 1224: "Graces a Dieu, les choses sont bien changees en peu

d'heure, estant maintenant faicts guardiens des assemblees ceux-la mesme

qui nous menoyent en prison." Postscript to Beza's letter of Nov. 4th,

Baum, ii., App., 122.]

[Footnote 1225: "C'est merveille des auditeurs des lecons de Monsieur

Calvin; jestime quils sont journellement plus de mille." Letter of De

Beaulieu, Geneva, Oct. 3, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 92.]

[Footnote 1226: Letter of De Beaulieu, _ubi supra_, 91.]

[Footnote 1227: "Mais ne nous a este possible jamais recouvrer ung

ministre, quelque diligence que nous avons faicte, seulement par

quelqu'un de nous faisons faire des prieres ainsi que par vostre Eglise

sont dressees." Lettre de l'eglise de Foix a la Venerable Compagnie

(1561); Gaberel, i., Pieces justif., 165-167.]

[Footnote 1228: Lettre de Fornelet a, l'eglise de Neufchatel, Oct. 6,

1561, Baum, ii., App., 95-100, Bulletin, xii. 361-366; Letter of

Fornelet to Calvin, of the same date, Bulletin, etc., xiv. 365.]

[Footnote 1229: Letter of De Beaulieu, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1230: Letter of Jacques Sorel for the "classe" of Troyes, Oct.

13, 1561, Bulletin, xii. 352-355, Baum, ii., App., 103, 104.]

[Footnote 1231: Otherwise, 15,000 or 20,000 Huguenots, of whom 2,000 or

3,000 were armed horsemen, would doubtless have come together, and

possibly seized some church edifices. The prince issued a very severe

order against future assailants. Letter of Languet, Oct. 17, 1561.

Epist. secr., ii. 149, 150. Ordonnance de M. le Prince de La

Roche-sur-Yon, lieutenant-general de sa Majeste en la ville de Paris,

publie le 16 Octobre 1561, Mem. de Conde, i. 57-59. Bruslart, as usual,

misrepresents the whole affair, i. 56. Languet was present with the

Protestants.]

[Footnote 1232: Languet, ii. 155.]

[Footnote 1233: Memoires de Philippi (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat),

624, 625: "Le populaire des fideles continuoit de mettre en pieces les

sepulchres, deterrer les morts, et faire mille follies.... Le peuple

porta sa haine jusqu'aux bennets quarres, et les gens de justice furent

obliges de prendre des chapeaux ou bonnets ronds."]

[Footnote 1234: As a single instance out of many, I cite a passage from

a letter of Pierre Viret to Calvin (Nismes, Oct. 31, 1561), illustrative

of the relation of the Huguenot ministers to the acts of mistaken zeal

with which this period abounded: "Hic apud nos omnia sunt pacatissima,

Dei beneficio. Ego, quoad possum, studeo in officio continere non solum

nostros Nemausenses [inhabitants of Nismes], sed etiam vicinos omnes:

sed interea multis in locis et templa occupantur, et idola dejiciuntur

sine nostro consilio. Ego omnia Domino committo, qui pro sua bona

voluntate cuncta moderabitur." Baum, ii., App., 120.]

[Footnote 1235: Letter from St. Germain, Nov. 4, 1561, Baum, ii., App.,

121. "Denique nostros potius quam adversaries metuo."]

[Footnote 1236: Mem. de Conde, i. 67, etc.; Letter of Santa Croce (Nov.

15, 1561), in Cimber et Danjou, vi. 5, 6, and Aymon, i. 5.]

[Footnote 1237: Santa Croce, _ubi supra_. Of the Cardinal of Ferrara's

apprehensions and the grounds for them, Shakerley, the legate's own

organist, and a spy of the English ambassador, secretly wrote to

Throkmorton from the French court at St. Germain: "Here is new fire,

here is new green wood reeking; new smoke and much contrary wind blowing

against Mr. Holy Pope; for in all haste the King of Navarre with his

tribe will have another council, and the Cardinal [of Ferrara] stamps

and takes on like a madman, and goeth up and down here to the Queen,

there to the Cardinal of Tournon, with such unquieting of himself as all

the house marvels at it." Shakerley to Throkmorton, Dec. 16, 1561, State

Paper Office. Printed in Froude, vii. 391. When a "holy friar" was

preaching before the court, his sermon "being without salt," the hearers

laughed, the king played with his dog, Catharine went to sleep, and

Ferrara "plucked down his cap." Same to same, Dec. 14, 1561, "two

o'clock after midnight." This industrious correspondent, who employed

the small hours of the night in transmitting to the English ambassador

his master's secrets, confessed to Throkmorton that he had no belief in

the depth of Ferrara's assumed concern, having "so marked the living of

priests" that he believed that "whensoever they are sure to have the

same livings that they have without being troubled, they care not an the

Pope were hanged, with all his indulgences," Letter of Dec. 16, 1561.

State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 1238: Journal de Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 60, etc.]

[Footnote 1239: Ibid., i. 65; a highly colored, partisan, and

consequently inaccurate account is given by Claude Haton, i. 214-221. T.

Shakerley, in his letter of Dec. 16th, relates the friar's interview

with Catharine, who, on seeing the fellow's boldness and the strength of

his popularity among the merchants of Paris (at least sixty of whom

escorted him), easily accepted his disclaimers, told him "she was much

content to hear that his preaching was good, without giving trouble to

the people," and bade him "go his way and preach and fear no harm, for

it should always please her son and her that the people should be taught

as in old time they had been preached unto." The intercession of the

Parisians, accompanied "by offers of forty thousand crowns pledge of his

forthcoming," Shakerley affirms, "has given _such a blow to the

preachers of the other side_ [the Huguenots] that there is _wonderful

change_." State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 1240: "Y quando leyo aquel passo de la letra (que si la reyna

madre no quisiesse el ayuda que se le offrescia, la darie V. M. a quien

se la pidiesse para favorescer la religion y conservarle en la verdad)

reparo un rato _y hecho a V. M. muchas bendiciones, diziendo que aquello

era un principe veramente catholico y defensor de la religion, y que no

esperava menos de V. M._" Vargas to Philip II., Nov. 7, 1561, Papiers

d'etat du card. de Granvelle, vi. 399. The Pope had agreed to assist the

orthodox party with sixty galleys (Ibid., vi. 437), and he cared little

if the French knew that he was in league with Philip (Ibid., vi.

401)--their fears might serve as a check upon their insolence.]

[Footnote 1241: "Qui premier voulsist monstrer les dens audist Sieur de

Vendosme et ses adherens."]

[Footnote 1242: "Rapport secret du secretaire Courtewille, et fondement

de son envoy devers Madame la duchesse de Parma es Pays-Bas en Decembre,

1561." Papiers d'etat du card. de Granvelle, vi. 433, etc. Letter of

Margaret of Parma to Philip II., Dec. 13, 1561, Ibid., vi. 444, seq.]

[Footnote 1243: "E s'avesse quello spirito che aveva il padre, o il

padre avesse avuto la presente fortuna, la Francia non saria piu

Francia."]

[Footnote 1244: Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 558-562.]

[Footnote 1245: Discours sur le Saceagement des Eglises Catholiques ...

en l'an 1562. Par F. Claude de Sainctes, 1563. Reprinted in Cimber et

Danjou, iv. 371. Claude Haton, i. 177, 178. I need not stop to refute

these partial statements. They are not surprising, coming as they do

from writers who accept all the vile stories of Huguenot midnight orgies

with unquestioning faith.]

[Footnote 1246: It is described in an "arret" of parliament as "une

maison size au fauxbourg S. Marcel, rue de Mouffetard, vulgairement

dicte la maison du Patriarche, pour ce que un patriarche d'Alexandrie

dechasse par les barbares la fit anciennement bastir, ayant entree sur

la grande rue dudict S. Marcel." Felibien, Hist. de Paris, iv., Preuves,

806.]

[Footnote 1247: De Thou (iii. 100) is much below the mark in stating the

number at about two thousand; the author of the "Histoire veritable de

la mutinerie" does not seem to exaggerate when he estimates it at twelve

thousand to thirteen thousand. The congregation was unusually large, the

day being the festival of St. John, and a holiday. The day before, the

Protestants had for the first time been permitted to assemble on a

feast-day, and Beza himself had preached without interruption to crowded

audiences at Popincourt and at the Patriarche. He had again preached on

the morning of St. John's Day. Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec, 30, 1561,

Baum, ii., App., 148.]

[Footnote 1248: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 422.]

[Footnote 1249: That the disturbance was premeditated is proved by the

fact, attested by the Histoire veritable, p. 60, that the precious

possessions of the church had been removed from St. Medard a few hours

before its occurrence. Its object was clearly revealed by the haste with

which the parliament despatched a messenger to St. Germain, to solicit

the king in council to revoke the permission heretofore granted the

Protestants to meet in the suburbs of Paris. Hist. eccles. des egl.

ref., i. 422.]

[Footnote 1250: With this scene the connection of the "Patriarche" with

the reformed services disappears from history. It had been let to the

Protestants by a merchant of Lucca, who was himself only a tenant. In

the ensuing summer the owner, moved by displeasure for the impiety of

the religious services it had witnessed, made a gift of the "Patriarche"

to the parliament, asking that it might be employed for the relief of

the poor and other charitable purposes. Arret of parliament, Aug. 18,

1562, Felibien, iv., Preuves, 806. Of course, Saint Medard was suitably

propitiated by solemn expiatory processions and pageantry.]

[Footnote 1251: And with every indignity on the part of the people. See

extracts from "Journal de 1562," in Baum, ii. 480, 481. The authorities

I have made use of in the account of the St. Medard riot given in the

text are: "Histoire veritable de la mutinerie, tumulte et sedition,

faite par les Prestres Sainct Medard contre les Fideles, le Samedy xxvii

iour de Decembre, 1561" (in Recueil des choses memorables, 822, etc.;

Mem. de Conde, ii. 541, etc.; Cimber et Danjou, iv. 49, etc.), a

contemporaneous pamphlet written by an eye-witness; other documents

inserted in Mem. de Conde, among them the Journal de Bruslart, i. 68;

Letter of Beza, who was present, to Calvin, Dec. 30, 1561, _apud_ Baum,

ii. App., 148-150; Hist. eccles., i. 421; De Thou, iii. 100; Claude

Haton, i. 179, etc.; Castelnau, l. iii., c. 5; J. de Serres, i. 346;

Claude de Sainctes, Saccagement (in Cimber et Danjou). It is almost

superfluous to add that the Roman Catholic and Protestant authorities

differ widely in the coloring given to the event. If any reader should

be inclined to think that I have given undue weight to the Huguenot

representations, let him examine the Roman Catholic De Thou--here, as

everywhere, candid and impartial.]

[Footnote 1252: De Thou, iii. (liv. xxix.) 118-123; Eecueil des choses

mem., 686-695; Memoires de Conde, ii. 606, etc.]

[Footnote 1253: Abbe Bruslart accuses Chancellor L'Hospital of packing

the convention with delegates of the parliaments who were his creatures;

"La pluspart desquels avoient este eleus et choisis par monsieur le

Chancelier De l'Hospital, _qui n'estoit sans grande suspition_." Journal

de Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 70.]

[Footnote 1254: Strange to say, Santa Croce employs, in his letters to

Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, the very same despairing expressions as those

for the use of which in his Latin commentaries he condemns Gualtieri. He

wishes to be recalled; he declares: "Che questo regno e nell' estrema

ruina, che non vi e speranza alcuna, che si vede cascar a occhiate, che

tutto e infetto, in capite et in membris," and that he does not want to

be present at the funeral of this wretched kingdom. Letter of January 7,

1562, Aymon, i. 21, 22; Cimber et Danjou, vi. 16,17.]

[Footnote 1255: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1256: Letter of Santa Croce, Jan. 15, 1562, Aymon, i. 35-40.]

[Footnote 1257: Of _forty-nine_ opinions, _twenty-two_ were given in

favor of an unconditional grant of the Protestant demand for churches,

_sixteen_ for a simple toleration of their religious assemblies and

worship, such as had been informally practised for the last two months,

while _eleven_ stood out boldly for the continued hanging and burning of

heretics. Among the most determined of these last were the Constable and

Cardinal Tournon. Much to their regret, they saw themselves compelled to

acquiesce in a liberal policy which they detested, in order to avoid

opening the doors wide to the establishment of Protestantism in France.

See Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 499. Compare, on the course of the

proceedings, Beza's letters and those of Santa Croce, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1258: See the text of the Edict of January, in Du Mont, Corps

diplomatique, v. 89-91; Mem. de Conde, iii. 8-15; Agrippa d'Aubigne,

liv. ii., t. i. 124-128; J. de Serres, etc.]