HENRY II.
[1547–1559.]
Henry II.--Catherine and Diana--Montmorency--Coronation--King
Enters Paris--Fêtes--Heretic Burning--New Edicts--Chambres
Ardentes--Edict of Chateaubriant--Persecution at Angers, Le Puy,
Velay--Inquisition Proposed--Resistance of Parliament--Siege and
Battle of St. Quentin--Affair of the Rue St. Jacques--Martyrdom
of Philippa de Lunz--Calvin’s Letter--Pre Aux Clercs and
Marot’s Psalms--Peace of Cateau-Cambresis--Divisions in the
Paris Parliament--The Mercurial of June--Du Faur and Du Bourg
Arrested--First Synod of Reformed Churches--Confession of Faith
and Book of Discipline--Edict of Ecouen--The Tournament--Henry’s
Death.
Henry II. was twenty-nine years of age when he ascended his
father’s throne (31st March, 1547), his elder brother, the dauphin
Francis, having died almost ten years before. He was rather tall,
well-proportioned, fond of athletic sports, and vain of his skill
in the tournay--a weakness that proved fatal to him at last. His
hair was dark, his beard short and pointed, his complexion pale,
almost livid. His large, black, lively eyes somewhat contradicted his
melancholy, saturnine character. He rarely laughed, and, according to
the Venetian envoy, Matteo Dandolo, some of the courtiers declared
they had never seen him smile. His portraits would leave us to suppose
that he was of a mild and gentle disposition; but bigotry often made
him cruel, and his pride was impatient of opposition. He could be
liberal, too--especially with other persons’ money. Thus he gave the
notorious Diana of Poitiers the renomination of all the officials whose
posts had become vacant by the death of his predecessors, by which
she appropriated more than 100,000 crowns in the shape of fines and
presents. Henry possessed good natural abilities, and a retentive
memory, but was uninstructed;[26] he had a taste for music, and spoke
Italian and Spanish. He was also religious, so far at least as not to
ride out on Sunday until after mass. Though not much distinguished in
war, he never shrank from danger, and at Landrecy conducted himself as
a good captain and brave soldier.[27]
His queen was Catherine de Medicis, one of the most enigmatical
personages in history. Attempts have recently been made to reverse
the judgment of time, and rehabilitate her character,[28] which
possibly has been painted in darker colors than it deserved; but to
convert her into a martyr and victim, entitled to our respect and
sympathy, is to write not history but romance. In early life she had
more than one narrow escape, and her later career can hardly prevent
our regretting that she lived to be old. At her birth (so runs the
story) astrologers foretold that she would be the ruin of the family
and the place where she was married. She was accordingly put into a
convent; but when her uncle, Clement VII., besieged Florence, in 1530,
the council of that city proposed taking her out and hanging her in
a basket over the battlements, so that she might be killed by the
besieger’s cannon. A still worse fate was proposed by others, which, to
the honor of humanity, she escaped. Although the niece of a pope, she
was a portionless orphan, and apparently doomed to spend her days in
the seclusion of a cloister. Such a life would have been happier for
her and for France; but it was not to be so. Her marriage with Henry of
Valois, in 1533, was strictly a political one--a bond of union between
Francis I. and Clement VII. against the emperor. The child-bride[29]
displayed at this time none of the darker characteristics which
afterward distinguished her. She was rather below the middle height,
her eyes were large and sparkling--they were peculiar to her
family,[30] her complexion was beautiful, her voice clear as a bell;
she dressed with care, and exercised a singular fascination over all
who came near her. Foreigners who saw her twenty or thirty years later
describe her as still possessing an excellent figure, with a hand and
arm that were the despair of the sculptor. She possessed many shining
qualities, which she often marred by devoting them to evil purposes. In
an age when female purity was not held in high esteem, she preserved a
reputation that scandal scarce has touched. She was prompt in action,
fertile in resources, could read character well, and had perfect
control over her own feelings. She never designedly made an enemy of
any one; and with her sweet smile, musical voice, and courteous manner,
converted many an enemy into a friend.
After the disastrous battle of St. Quentin she gave the first
indications of her skill in public matters. The king had urgent need
of money, and as he was absent from Paris, Catherine went to the
parliament, explained the royal necessities, and obtained a grant of
300,000 livres. “She thanked them in such words that all wept with
tenderness.... Throughout the city men talked of nothing but her
majesty’s prudence.”[31] After this time (we are told) the king went
more into her society. During her husband’s life, she possessed but
little influence: his dislike to her at one time nearly approaching to
hatred. He often taunted her with her plebeian origin; and, but for
the love Francis I. bore her, she would have been repudiated and sent
back to her relations. In the earlier years of her wedded life she was
unpopular, because she was childless, and because her uncle, Clement,
who deceived all who trusted in him, had evaded his engagements. By
degrees, however, she won the love of the people, who would willingly
have shed their blood for her.[32]
If she did not love her husband, she made a great show of sincere
attachment. When he was away from her with the army, she would put
herself and her attendants into mourning; and go in procession to
various shrines to pray for his happiness and success. She has been
described as _molto religiosa_, but that means very little in
an Italian mouth. In later years, it was not easy to tell when she
was sincere, or when playing a part. She had been trained in that
school whence Machiavelli derived his maxims. She thought nothing
of right or wrong: her principles, if such they may be termed, were
prudence, expediency, and success; and she preferred a tortuous to a
straightforward policy. During the life of her husband, Catherine had
filled a subordinate position, having the title, but little of the
respect, that surrounds a queen. She never had fair play, and her early
years were blighted by the shadow cast upon them by Diana of Poitiers.
Diana, Duchess of Valentinois, was the widow of Louis de Brézé, high
seneschal of Normandy,[33] and the most beautiful woman of the age.[34]
In her youth she had captivated the affections, such as they were, of
Francis I., and even during his life-time had enthralled the future
king by her dazzling charms. Henry used to wear her colors, black and
white;[35] consult her on affairs of state, and permit her to dispense
the ecclesiastical patronage.[36] It has been said that the love
between them was purely platonic: the statement--borne out in some
degree by the difference of their years--is not, however, in accordance
with the opinion of her contemporaries.[37] The king at one time seems
to have been quite infatuated with her. At the foot of her portrait he
wrote the first words of Marot’s version of the forty-second Psalm--
As pants the hart for cooling streams,
While heated in the chase,
So longs my soul for thee!
Brantome describes her as “a good Catholic and very devout;” but the
abbe’s standard is not a high one. He adds that “she hated those of
the religion.”[38] This we can believe, but her dislike did not extend
to their possessions, by which she grew enormously rich. The historian
Matthieu records that the people said of her: “For twelve years an
old woman kept heaven so close, that not a drop of justice fell on
France, except by stealth.” She was very extravagant in her tastes, to
meet which added much to an already oppressive taxation. The ruins
of her little palace of Anet, on the Eure, near Dreux, still exhibit
some faint traces of the splendor and elegance of its first occupant,
and of its architect Philibert de l’Orme. In 1547, Henry II. made her
a present of the castle of Chenonceau, a marvel of the Renaissance,
built by that unfortunate superintendent of finance, Jacques de
Beaune-Semblançay. In the letters patent conveying this magnificent
present to his favorite, the king declared it was “in consideration of
the great and most commendable services rendered to the crown by her
late husband, Louis de Brézé.” But when Henry died, Catherine forced
her to give up the château, and retained it for herself. To decorate
this building and add to its pleasure grounds, Henry imposed a tax upon
bells--twenty livres each. The people murmured loudly at this, and
Rabelais, echoing the popular complaints, pretended that “the king had
hung all the bells of the kingdom round the neck of his mare.”[39]
One of Henry’s first acts, after his accession, was to dismiss his
father’s ministers, and place the management of affairs in the hands
of Montmorency, conjointly with the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal of
Lorraine, and Marshal St. André, who had been the king’s playmate.
The constable was nearly sixty years of age when he was thus recalled
from the retirement to which Francis I. had banished him. He was a
man of harsh manners, ignorant,[40] greedy of money, and a bigot in
religion; or, perhaps it may be truer to say, vain of his descent
from Pharamond, and of being “the first Christian baron of France.”
At times he could be exceedingly pompous and haughty, and though he
had seen much service, he possessed but little military capacity. Some
of the stories told of his ferocity have a certain grim humor about
them, notwithstanding their brutality. While saying his prayers, he
would break off suddenly and order this man to be whipped, or that
to be hanged, or a village to be burned, and then continue (“tant
il était consciencieux,” says Brantome) as if he had done the most
natural thing in the world. These _paternosters_ had passed into
a proverb, during his life-time. When he marched to Bordeaux, to put
down an insurrection occasioned in the south-west of France by the
severity with which the infamous _gabelle_ or salt-tax was levied,
he told the citizens as they came out to present him with the keys of
the gates: “Begone with your keys. I don’t want them. I will open your
gates with mine (pointing to his cannon), and have you all hanged.
I’ll teach you to rebel against your king.” And for five weeks terror
reigned in the city. More than one hundred and forty persons were
hanged, decapitated, burned alive, or otherwise put to death; not a few
of them having been torn asunder by horses, impaled, or broken on the
wheel. “It was an exemplary punishment,” says Brantome, “but _not
so severe_ as the case required.” The country was laid waste far
and wide by an ill-disciplined, unpaid soldiery--a course of treatment
which did not increase the loyalty or orthodoxy of the inhabitants.
Montmorency was a great favorite with the king, and his son Francis
married Diana of Angoulême, Henry’s natural daughter.[41]
Henry II. was duly crowned at Rheims in July, 1547, and the particulars
recorded of the ceremony show that we have fallen off in the matter
of kingly pomp. On a platform erected before the gate of the city,
there was a representation of the sun, which appeared to expand like a
flower. In the centre was a crimson heart, out of which stepped a young
girl in costly attire, who offered the keys of the city to the monarch.
Henry suffered two years to elapse before he visited his capital. On
16th June, 1549, all Paris was in commotion. A grand procession of the
notabilities of the city, both lay and clerical, went out to meet and
harangue him, according to the wearisome custom of the age. The king,
richly dressed, rode a white horse, and was attended by the princes
of the blood, foreign ambassadors, marshals of France, and knights
of the various orders of chivalry, all well mounted. The glittering
procession took its way through streets hung with tapestry, and under
triumphal arches, to Notre Dame. After the usual _Te Deum_, Henry
was escorted with boisterous acclamations to the bishop’s palace, where
a royal banquet had been prepared for him in the great hall. Only the
princes of the royal house ate at his table. On his right sat the
Cardinals of Bourbon and Vendome: on his left the Dukes of Vendome,
Montpensier, and Roche-sur-Yon. The Constable Montmorency, by virtue of
his office, stood in front of him with a drawn sword. Henry remained at
the palace two days, until the solemn entry of the queen. She was in a
horse-litter profusely ornamented, and at her side rode the Cardinals
of Amboise, Chatillon, Boulogne, and Lenoncourt. Two other litters
were used by the princesses, their ladies following on hackneys, and
attended by pages on foot. After the customary prayers at Notre Dame,
and the dinner at the bishop’s palace, a ball was given (for churchmen
could dance in those days), at which the “enfants de la ville,” some
sixscore young men, danced with the court ladies, and acquitted
themselves with much grace, to the evident satisfaction of Henry, who
had arranged this little incident. After the ball there was a supper--a
collation of preserves and sweetmeats; and to end the feast, the
provost of the merchants and the aldermen presented the queen with a
“buffet complet,” a complete set of double silver-gilt plate, adorned
with fleur-de-lis and “crescents.”[42]
The morrow being Corpus Christi day, the provost and aldermen waited
upon the king at the palace of the Tournelles, to present him with a
piece of plate, which the chronicles are careful to tell us was of
“ducat gold.” It was a grand allegorical work of art, at that time
unmatched in Europe.[43] The provost made a complimentary speech on
presenting it, and the king, who was delighted with the gift, thanked
him in language as flattering as it was gracious. This emboldened the
provost to invite him to follow the example of his ancestors, and come
to the Grève next Sunday--the eve of St. John--and set fire to the
great tree. Henry complied with the request, and went, accompanied by
the queen, the princes and princesses, and kindled the fire with a
torch of white wax handed him by the provost. Thence he proceeded to
the Hotel de Ville, where, after the usual collation--a good custom
which still prevails in civic entertainments--the city dames had the
honor of dancing with the king and his court. It was still light when
he returned to his palace of the Tournelles.
During the month Henry remained in Paris, there were frequent tournays
in the lists, prepared by the city in the Rue St. Antoine. The provost
had also built a fort on the islet of Louviers in the Seine, to afford
the king the pleasing spectacle of a bombardment and a sea-fight. A
bridge of boats had been constructed from the island of Notre Dame to
that of Louviers for the passage of the troops that were to attack the
fort. These were harmless amusements compared with some that followed.
On Thursday, 4th July, Henry quitted the Tournelles at seven in the
morning, and rode in grand procession to the great cathedral, where he
heard high mass, and then went to dine at the episcopal palace, after
which the royal digestion was gently stimulated by the burning of some
heretics. On another occasion, after a similar procession and banquet,
some more heretics were burned in the Rue St. Antoine, “where the king
stopped and advised them to recant.”[44] Heretic-burning was one of the
popular sports of the day, at which--if contemporary engravings are any
authority in such matters--high-born dames attended in full dress. It
was on one of these occasions (4th July, 1549), that Henry witnessed
the execution of a poor tailor, who had offended Diana by language
not unlike that which John the Baptist used with regard to Herodias.
The sufferer, we are told, turned upon the king such a look of calm
reproach, that he withdrew frightened from the window, and for several
nights after fancied that the dying man haunted his bedside.
Meanwhile the reformed doctrines had been spreading fast. Extending
beyond the small circle of nobles, scholars, and church dignitaries, by
whom they were first taught and defended, and making their way into the
lower strata of society,[45] they had become more definite and radical.
The uneducated shoe-maker or ploughman could not appreciate such nice
distinctions as Margaret of Valois drew in her “Mass of Seven Points,”
and would not have cared for such subtleties if he had understood them.
These simple men heard the Bible read and explained to them, and the
doctrines of Free Grace and of the Atonement sank straight into their
hearts. There was very little but habit to keep the people faithful to
the old Church. “They are more affected,” says Matthieu, unconsciously
imitating Horace, “by example than by instruction, and estimate the
truth of a doctrine by the purity of a man’s life.” Such an example was
rarely found in the Catholic clergy. Another strong reforming agent was
the misery of the times. With reference to Normandy, which was better
off than many other provinces, a local historian writes: “The people
were easily seduced; the dues and taxes were so excessive that in many
villages there was no assessment. The _decimes_ were so high
that the parish priests and their curates ran away for fear of being
imprisoned, and ceased to perform divine service in many parishes near
Caen.... Seeing this, the preachers from Geneva took possession of the
churches and chapels.”[46]
Yet great as had been the increase of numbers, the Reformed at
this time could hardly have amounted to a hundredth part of the
population; even in 1558 they were not estimated at more than 400,000.
The cities along the course of the Rhone and those lying at the
foot of the Alps were strongly Calvinistic, as was also Languedoc,
where probably some relics of the old Albigensian spirit of revolt
still lingered. In this province the Romish Church was especially
hateful, as it had been enriched by the confiscated estates of the
Albigensian nobles.[47] Anjou and Normandy were divided; Picardy felt
the influence of Flanders, where the new doctrines were extending
with civil liberty. Nearly all the rest of France was Catholic. The
rural population was then, as now, under the influence of the clergy,
as also were the inhabitants of the smaller country towns. These are
usually a narrow-minded class, an almost inevitable consequence of
their isolation, and the dull nature of their habits and occupations.
In Paris, the mass of the population was Catholic, the dangerous
classes being especially demonstrative in their orthodoxy. The progress
of religious reform might have been more rapid but for certain
peculiarities in the state of society, which made every innovation
difficult. The guilds in the towns had their patron saints and annual
festivals. If a man adopted the reformed faith, he must renounce
these, and become a sort of outcast among his comrades, and perhaps
the severest persecution he had to undergo was that he endured at the
hands of his fellow-workmen. We all know how much this prevails in
large factories and in trade unions among us: and it must have been
incalculably worse at a time when the guilds were such close bodies
that it was impossible to carry on a trade independently of them.
Henry II., like his father, cared little about the new doctrines,
so long as they were confined to the learned and the well-born: but
when they spread among the lower classes, he determined to punish
heresy as worse than treason. His father’s edicts were carried out
with great severity; but they were so far from producing the desired
effect, that the Reform spread more and more. In order to hasten its
extirpation, a new edict was issued (19th November, 1549), in which,
after complaining that the bishops and their suffragans proceeded too
slowly and tenderly--a statement which it is hard to accept--Henry
established special chambers of Parliament for the trial and punishment
of heresy only. It was a kind of lay inquisition, of which all the
judges in the realm, both civil and ecclesiastical, were members
_ex officio_. These were the famous _chambres ardentes_,
so called, says Mezeray, “because they burned without mercy every
one they convicted.” But the new edict appears to have had as little
effect as its predecessors, for in the following month of February
the king by letters patent reproached the judges for want of zeal “in
discharging their duty in this holy and laudable work, so acceptable
to God.” Finally the sanguinary edict of Chateaubriant[48] was issued
(27th June, 1551), by which all the old laws on heresy were revised and
codified. In the preamble, after recounting the efforts of his father
as well as his own to suppress heresy, Henry declared that “the error
went on increasing day by day and hour by hour;” that it was “like
the plague, so contagious that in many large cities it had infected
the majority of the inhabitants, men and women of every station, and
even the little children had sucked in the poison;” and that he saw
no hope of amendment except by employing the severest measures “to
overcome the willfulness and obstinacy of that wretched sect, and to
purge and clear the kingdom of them.” The magistrates were, therefore,
ordered to search unceasingly for heretics, and to make domiciliary
visits in quest of forbidden books (among which the Latin Bible of
Robert Stephens was included).[49] This edict made denunciation a
trade by giving the informer one-third of the heretic’s confiscated
property, and farther enacted that a person acquitted of heresy in any
ordinary court of justice might be again tried before an ecclesiastical
tribunal, and _vice versâ_, thus depriving the poor Reformer of
all chance of escape. Every suspected person was required to possess a
certificate of orthodoxy, and even intercession on behalf of convicted
heretics was made penal. These severities--though they were called
“too lenient” by the pope--drove the Reformed to emigrate in such
numbers in spite of all attempts to stop them, that a president of the
Parliament of Bordeaux wrote to Montmorency expressing his alarm at
seeing on the one hand the emigration increasing every day, and on the
other the great progress made by Calvinism. But the king was not to be
moved from his purpose. “In God’s cause,” he said, “every one should be
ready to put his shoulder to the wheel.” A very proper sentiment, only
we must be sure that the cause is of God. When the Parliament of Paris
registered the edict of Chateaubriant, they compared Henry to Numa,
“quod Numa primus condidit templum fidei.” The decree was carried out
with extreme severity all over the kingdom, but particularly in Saumur,
Lyons, Nîmes, Toulouse, Paris, Guyenne, Bresse, and Champagne.
In Poitou and Anjou the fires of persecution blazed fiercely. Of
three pastors at Angers two were burned alive, and of the flock six
were put to death, and thirty-four who fled were burned as they were
caught. The Reformed meditated taking up arms in self-defense, but
were strongly advised by Calvin not to do so, and they obeyed. But the
trial of their endurance must have been severe; for so great was the
terrorism toward the end of 1556 that the Reformed ceased from writing
to one another, or if they wrote, directed their letters, “To the
brethren whom we _dare not name_ lest they should suffer harm.”
In other parts of France, especially in the south and centre, the
Reformers suffered less. At Le Puy the discontent first showed itself
in the destruction of a venerated crucifix during the Holy Week. The
sacrilege was atoned for by a solemn procession. The shops were closed,
all work ceased, the bells rang out noisily from the great belfry, and
the priests in a long line climbed the steep and narrow streets of that
gloomy-looking town, up that giant flight of one hundred and eighteen
steps to the grand portal of the cathedral. On this lofty platform the
procession halted--not to admire the wide prospect that now charms
every traveler--but to chant the penitential psalms before entering
that old grey temple. The bells, which had ceased their monotonous din
during this solemn moment, now pealed out joyously. The priests took
off the emblems of mourning which they had worn until this moment, and
entered the cathedral, the citizens following, each man in his own
guild. The very next night a similar outrage occurred, and as the real
culprits could not be found, two men were burned for heresy, their
tongues having been first torn out (July, 1552). But “justice” was not
overprecise in its nomenclature in those days, for we find two thieves
who stole a chalice put to death as heretics, and two coiners of base
money suffered a like fate. In 1555 two “most rascally heretics”
were burned to death in the midst of a pile of “pestilent books from
Geneva.” Oh, those books! how tyranny and falsehood hate them!
Two years later a wretched pedlar was convicted of selling “the
damnable writings of Calvin,” and his execution ordered to take place
on one of the chief festivals of the Church--that of Corpus Christi. It
was a bright morning in summer. The walls of the houses were hung with
drapery and the windows filled with spectators, while the procession
moved along more like a Roman triumph than a Christian celebration.
Music led the way, the guilds followed with their insignia, next came
the religious brotherhood with their banners, while troops of boys
and girls, all dressed in white, scattered roses and burned incense.
The clergy in their costliest robes followed next, escorting the Holy
Sacrament, which the bishop held up to be seen and worshiped by all.
Again came white-robed youths and maidens, and last of all the poor
pedlar in a shirt of sacking. He was barefoot, carried a lighted taper
in his hand, and the rope was round his neck. Every time the procession
halted, the wretched man fell on his knees and made the _amende
honorable_, according to the terms of his sentence. This long agony
lasted five hours, until at length the martyr was committed to the fire.
After this the heretics of Velay, where this mournful tragedy had been
enacted, grew bolder and began to assemble “in open day in fields,
gardens, barns, no matter where.... Their preachers were butchers,
brick-layers, publicans, and other venerable doctors of that sort,”
says a contemporary manuscript. The populace jeered and hooted at
them as they went to their meetings, and the Reformers retaliated
by fastening rosaries to their dogs’ necks, and breaking the images
of Our Lady, calling them “useless logs.” Sometimes the persons who
thus insulted the established religion were discovered and punished,
but heresy flourished nevertheless. The heretics banded together and
entered into a covenant of mutual aid. They established a sort of
benefit club, elected leaders, collectors, and treasurers, bought
arms and ammunition, and kept themselves ready for all eventualities.
The society numbered about four hundred--all resolute men, and strong
enough to ensure freedom of worship--at least for a time.
Confiscations, imprisonment, and death having failed to purge the
kingdom of heresy, the Cardinal of Lorraine suggested (in 1555) a
new edict, by virtue of which all persons convicted of heresy by the
ecclesiastical judges should be punished according to the magnitude
of the crime without appeal, and proposed the appointment of Ory as
“inquisitor of the faith in France;”[50] but bishops and Parliament
alike protested against it. The magistrates were especially offended
at having a court set over them, before which they were liable to be
tried. President Seguier remonstrated to the Council in language worthy
of the occasion: “We abhor the establishment of a tribunal of blood,
where secret accusation takes the place of proof; where the accused
is deprived of every natural means of defense, and where no judiciary
form is respected. Commence, Sire, by giving the nation an edict which
will not cover your kingdom with burning piles, or be wetted with the
tears and blood of your faithful subjects.” He suggested that instead
of employing fire and sword to establish and extend religion, they
should try the same means that had been employed to found it, namely,
“the revival of pure doctrine, combined with the exemplary lives of the
clergy.” Henry received the advice courteously, and the edict was not
enforced.
It might be supposed that there was little to choose between the
Inquisition and the Chambres Ardentes; but the difference was vital.
From the sentence of the Inquisition, which derived its authority from
the Holy See, there could be no appeal. Its victims were handed over
to the secular arm, and not even the king had power to come between
them and death.[51] But it was a fundamental principle of the French
law that the king alone, as supreme head of the state, had the power
of life and death over the subjects of the state; and that all appeals
should be heard and decided by lay judges.[52] In the next reign we
shall find the great Chancellor L’Hôpital declaring the edict of
Romorantin with all its harshness and restrictions to be more merciful
than any copy of the Spanish tribunals of blood could be.
The cardinal was not a man to be daunted by this repulse, and in April,
1557, he procured a bull from Pius IV. ordering the establishment
of an inquisitorial tribunal of which himself and the Cardinals of
Bourbon and Chatillon were named directors, with authority to set up
new courts of bishops and doctors of divinity, with full power to
arrest, imprison, and put to death, without regard to rank or quality,
all persons suspected of heresy. The king seems to have been as eager
as the cardinal to obtain this bull, his embassador at Rome being
ordered to press the matter as “the only means of extirpating false
doctrine.”[53] The pope also sent Henry a sword and helmet as symbols
of the war he had declared against heresy. We shall see ere long to
what use the sword was put. Again the Parliament stood forward and
resisted the establishment of the irresponsible tribunal. If their
motives were selfish, their object was good, and farther proceedings
were adjourned for a year. It is possible too that Henry yielded from
opposition of another kind, having discovered that the new doctrines
had made greater progress than he had imagined among the nobles, who
were not the men to suffer patiently like poor scholars and mechanics.
A certain amount of toleration was therefore conceded, until the treaty
of Cateau-Cambresis made persecution an international duty.
Although the persecution never ceased in France during the reign of
Henry II., there were intervals of reaction when the fires burned dim
and the sword of the executioner hung idle on the wall. These were
usually connected with the foreign policy of the government--a subject
not within the scope of these pages. It may be sufficient to mention
generally that as the basis of every diplomatic arrangement with the
Pope, the Emperor, or the King of Spain, was the extirpation of heresy,
so a certain toleration accorded to heretics was a means of showing
dissatisfaction with one or all of those three powers. The furious
outburst of persecution which occurred at the period we have now
reached, may be partly traced to the changes that had taken place in
foreign countries. Mary was fiercely persecuting her English subjects,
Cranmer having atoned for his weaknesses by his heroic martyrdom in
1556; Philip II. had succeeded to the throne of Spain and re-enacted
his father’s cruel edict of 1550; and Paul IV., the restorer of the
Inquisition, sat in St. Peter’s chair. France was at war with Spain and
had suffered many reverses; Francis, Duke of Guise, was unsuccessful in
Italy, where Alva, as yet unstained by blood, was carrying all before
him; while on the northern frontier the Constable Montmorency tried in
vain to make head against the impetuous attacks of Emmanuel Philibert
of Savoy, who commanded the Spanish troops in Flanders. Philibert
laid siege to St. Quentin, where Admiral Coligny held out stubbornly
against overwhelming odds. Montmorency marched to the relief of the
city and re-enforced the garrison by 500 soldiers, under the command of
Andelot, but suffered a bloody defeat (10th August, 1557) a few hours
afterward, when his cavalry was routed and his infantry cut to pieces.
He himself was wounded and made prisoner, along with Marshal St. André.
So complete was the rout, so crushing the defeat--the severest that
France had received since the battle of Agincourt--that the Parisians
trembled lest the conqueror should appear before their gates. More
than once has that beautiful city been spared by the procrastination
of a victorious enemy, and the fear of driving a gallant nation to
extremity. The fortress of St. Quentin fell on the 27th August, Coligny
and his brother Andelot being made prisoners.
Such national disasters were regarded as a judgment from heaven,
and the evangelicals were made the scape-goats. Priests went into
the pulpit and inflamed the passions of their ignorant hearers by
the coarsest vituperations. “God is punishing us,” they shouted,
“because we have not avenged his honor,” and the populace yielding
to the superstitious impulse caught up the cry.[54] They soon had an
opportunity of putting into practice the lesson they had been taught.
On the night of the 4th September, 1557,[55] a number of adherents
of the new religion, amounting to three or four hundred, assembled
at a private house in the suburbs on the left bank of the river for
the purpose of united worship. The men belonged chiefly to the upper
classes, and the women were of good families, some of them being ladies
in attendance on the queen.[56] The service had been conducted in
quiet, the Lord’s-supper administered, and the congregation was about
to separate when they found the street--the Rue St. Jacques--blockaded
by a furious mob bearing torches and armed with every weapon they
could catch up. “Death to the traitors! down with the Lutherans!” they
shouted, as they rushed to the door and tried to force an entrance.
They were kept at bay by a few resolute gentlemen who, by their rank,
were entitled to carry swords, while the women and the elders sought
to escape through the garden which opened into the fields. But every
outlet was guarded and all opportunity of flight cut off. What was to
be done? Death, a horrible death at the hands of the mob, appeared
imminent. The only chance of safety lay in seeking the protection
of the magistrates before the city gates were opened, and all the
ruffianism of Paris was let loose upon them. With this intent a few
gallant gentlemen volunteered to attempt to reach the Hotel de Ville,
the others remaining to guard the helpless women and old men. Suddenly
the door of the house was thrown open and the desperate little band
rushed out and cut its way through the crowd with the loss of only one
of their number. Throughout the long night those left behind waited in
trembling apprehension for the dawn. They prayed to God for support,
and sometimes one of their number would read a consolatory chapter from
the Bible, the yells of the populace frequently drowning the voice of
the reader.
Day-light came at last, but it brought no relief. The doors were
forced, and the unarmed worshipers would have been torn to pieces, when
a detachment of the city guard arrived and took them off to prison,
saving many of them for a still crueler death. As the helpless captives
were dragged through the streets, the mob reviled and cast mud at them.
On reaching the Châtelet, they were thrust into filthy dungeons from
which the vilest criminals had been removed to make room for them;
where the light of day hardly penetrated, and where “they could neither
sit nor lie down, they were so crowded.”[57]
The Reformed Church of Paris was in a pitiable state, so many of its
members being in peril of their lives. Extraordinary prayers were
offered up in every family for the delivery of the martyrs, and a
remonstrance drawn up by the elders was presented to the king, who put
it aside unnoticed. But (strange to say!) there was no eager haste to
punish the prisoners any farther, the example of their seizure having
frightened many back to orthodoxy. But orthodox agitators were busily
at work to keep up the popular excitement and prevent the escape of the
captives. The heretics and all who would shelter them were vehemently
denounced from the pulpit, and inflammatory placards were stuck on
every wall. A verse from one of these, posted all over Paris on
Christmas day, 1557, will show the style in which the popular fury was
stirred against the “Lutherans.”
Paris, en ce temps froidureux
Que les nuits sont longues et fraiches,
Tu dois bien veiller sur tous ceux
Qui font auprès de toi des prêches.
Si, de bref, tu ne les dépêches,
Jamais paix n’auront les chrétiens;
Car ceux que tu souffres et tiens
Te causeront tant de courroux,
Que tu diras, toy et les tiens:
Montagnes, tombez dessus nous.
When the excitement had abated, and the affair was almost forgotten,
the prisoners of the Rue St. Jacques were brought to trial. Their
lives were forfeited by the mere fact of their presence at an unlawful
assembly, and the alternative of recantation or death was presented to
them; but they would not yield an inch. They found that man’s weakness
was God’s strength.
Among the captives was Philippa de Lunz, a woman of good family, a
widow, and only twenty-two years old. She was interrogated several
times, but her answers were such as to destroy all hope of pardon. On
the 27th September, 1558, more than a year after her imprisonment,
she was led out to death, in company with Nicholas Clinet or Clivet,
a school-master, and Taurin Gravelle, an advocate, both elders in the
Reformed Church. Before they were placed in the tumbrel that was to
carry them to the stake in the Place Maubert, they were to have their
tongues cut out, to prevent their praying aloud or addressing the
people on the road to death. The two men suffered this cruel mutilation
without a groan. Turning to Philippa, the executioner roughly bade her
put out her tongue. She did so immediately. Even he was struck by her
intrepidity: “Come! that’s well, _truande_,” he said; “you are not
afraid then?” “As I do not fear for my body,” she replied, “why should
I fear for my tongue?” The knife flashed an instant before her eyes
and her tongue fell to the ground. She was then thrust into the cart
at the feet of her two companions and bound to the same chain. Before
leaving the prison she had taken off her widow’s weeds and put on the
best garments left her, saying: “Why should I not rejoice? I am going
to meet my husband.”
Around a pile of faggots in the Place Maubert there had collected all
that was vilest in Paris, dancing and calling out for blood, just as
some two hundred years later a similar mob danced round the victims
of the guillotine. The king is said to have been a spectator of the
horrible scene that followed. It was Philippa’s fate to look on while
her two companions were burned to death--to witness their horrible
convulsions, and hear the shrieks which the mounting flames extorted
from them. But even this did not shake her faith, which found support
in earnest prayer. And now her turn had come; the executioners roughly
seized her with their strong arms, shamefully tearing her clothes, and
held her over the hot ashes until her feet were burned to the bone.
Then with a horrible refinement of cruelty the savage torturers hung
her head-downward in the fire, until the scalp was burned off and her
eyes scorched out. After that she was strangled, and heaven received
another saint.
A few days later four more of the prisoners suffered death at the
same place. One of them, as he opened the shutter of his cell on the
morning of his execution, that he might behold the sunrise once more,
exclaimed: “How glorious it will be when we are exalted above all this.”
One of Calvin’s noblest letters was written at this time to the
prisoners still remaining in the Châtelet, and more particularly to the
women, whom he exhorted to imitate the strength and faith of Madame de
Lunz: “If men are weak and easily troubled,” he said, “the weakness
of your sex is still greater, according to the order of nature. But
God, that worketh in weak vessels, will show forth his strength in the
infirmity of his people.... He who sets us in the battle supplies us
from time to time with the necessary arms, and gives us skill to use
them.... Consider how great were the excellences and firmness of the
women at the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the apostles had
forsaken him, they still remained by him with marvelous constancy, and
a woman was his messenger to inform them of his resurrection, which
they could neither believe nor understand. If he so honored them at
that time and gave them such excellence, do you think he has less power
now, or that he has changed his mind?” Calvin showed that his was not a
barren sympathy by making every effort to induce the cantons of Berne
and Zurich and the German princes to intercede in behalf of the poor
prisoners. Their intercession prevailed to save such as remained alive.
The doors of the Châtelet were thrown open: the younger prisoners were
transferred to monasteries from which they easily escaped; while others
obtained a full pardon after making an ambiguous confession of faith
before the bishop’s officers. Pope Paul IV. complained bitterly of this
moderation, and declared that he was not astonished at the bad state
of affairs in France, now that the king trusted more in the support of
heretics than in the protection of heaven.[58]
Not only did the severe measures we have described fail of their
effect, after the first alarm had passed away, but the reformed
doctrines made so many new converts that Beza, writing to his friend
Bullinger about this time, declared “that the king must either destroy
entire cities, or make some concession to the truth.”[59] The severity
exercised upon the martyrs of the Rue St. Jacques had overleaped
itself. A contemporary historian and a Romanist says, that such
mournful sights disturbed many simple souls, who could not forbear
thinking that the men and women who could undergo such tortures with
calmness and resolution must have truth on their side, and he adds with
touching simplicity, “They could not contain their tears, their hearts
wept as well as their eyes.”[60]
The summer of 1558 witnessed a singular protest against the persecuting
and obstructive policy of the Church. It assumed a form, and was
carried out with a pertinacity and a _malice_ peculiarly French.
Clement Marot, the earliest of French poets and a favorite of the
late king, had translated some of the Psalms of David into verse,
which immediately became popular. They sold faster than they could be
printed. Francis I. quoted them on his dying-bed,[61] and by his order
the translator had presented a copy of his first series of thirty to
Charles V., who rewarded him for it and pressed him to continue it.[62]
The ladies and gentlemen of the French court took a strange delight in
singing them, but not always to the most appropriate tunes. The martyrs
of Meaux had sung them at the stake. Henry II., when dauphin, was fond
of singing them; and on one occasion, when recovering from an illness,
he had them chanted to him by his choristers, with the accompaniment
of “lutes, viols, spinnets, and flutes.” His favorite was the 128th
Psalm: _Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord_, which he is
reported to have set to music. Catherine had her favorite: _O Lord,
rebuke me not in thine anger_; that of Diana of Poitiers was the
solemn _De Profundis_ (Ps. 120). The King of Navarre selected the
43d: _Judge me, O Lord_; and even Charles IX., at a much later
period, used to repeat, _As pants the hart_; probably because of
its allusion to the chase. The Protestants of France sang them at all
times, and as neither the music nor the words could be condemned as
heretical,[63] they were sung when no other mode of divine worship
was practicable. Thus when the citizens took their evening walk in
the Pré aux Clercs,[64] the Hyde Park of those days, some student or
Reformer would strike up one of Marot’s Psalms, in which they would all
join. Many may have done this out of pure bravado, but others out of
love for the truths they contained. The King and Queen of Navarre were
fond of that pleasant promenade by the river-side, and took delight in
listening to this multitudinous singing.
These things cease to move us now, not because we are less religious,
but because we are less demonstrative, and there is no opposition to
force us into an external display of our faith. There have always been
occasions when large bodies of men have tried to conceal or perhaps to
alleviate their excitement by singing. Cromwell’s troopers thundered
out a Psalm as they marched up the breach at Dunkirk, and the Girondins
sang the Marseillaise as they stood at the foot of the guillotine.
But there was something more than this in the sudden popularity which
Marot’s Psalms acquired among all classes. It was the revival of an old
Christian custom; it popularized a new mode of worship. In the earlier
and purer days of the Church, singing had been congregational; but it
had long since become the business of priest and chorister solely. The
old tunes had grown obsolete, and airs wedded to mundane songs had been
introduced into the Church service. “The _Miserere_ is chanted to
a jig-tune,” said a Catholic writer. Other influences, many of them
sacerdotal, were at work to widen the interval between the priest
and his flock--to reduce public worship into a sort of theatrical
performance in which he and his colleagues were the actors, and the
others the spectators and listeners. But if the people did not sing
at church, there is ample evidence that they sang at home; and it is
probably owing to this circumstance that we possess so many partsongs
in our old music-books. It is one of the glories of the Reformation
that it gave a religious character to these songs. Luther and Calvin
both saw how music might be employed to advance the truth, and
neglected no opportunity of recommending the study of singing. Luther
had but a poor opinion of a school-master who could not sing, and
ranked music next to theology. “It has been commanded unto all men,”
he said, “to propagate the word of God by every possible means, not
merely by speech, but by writing, painting, sculpture, _psalms_,
_songs_, and musical instruments.” He composed many tunes: these
and the chorales of Senfel penetrated into France, and German airs form
the basis of a large part of the French hymnal. Calvin took no less
pains at Geneva, and the tunes composed by his desire were distributed
by thousands, each part being printed separately to facilitate their
execution. Even Catholics were to be found using these Protestant
scores--a practice which Florimond de Remond, the historian of heresy,
bitterly condemns: “The wise world--stupidly wise in this--which judges
of things by outward appearance only, praised this kind of amusement,
not seeing that under this chant, or rather new enchantment, a thousand
pernicious novelties crept into their souls.”[65] The time came,
however, when even psalm-singing was interdicted. At Bourges, in April,
1559, the Reformed began to hold open-air meetings, similar to those at
Paris, to the great annoyance of the orthodox, who caused proclamation
to be made forbidding the singing of Psalms under pain of death, and a
gibbet was erected, _in terrorem_, in the middle of the promenade
(the Pré Fichault); but even that grim monitor failed to terrify the
Reformers into submission. In the Velay, the opposition was equally
determined. The very day an order was issued forbidding the people to
sing the Psalms of that “sacrilegious apostate,” Marot, the heretics,
“fearing neither God, pope, king, law, nor justice, sang them all the
louder.”[66]
Meanwhile both France and Spain had grown weary of the war, and a
treaty of peace was concluded at Cateau-Cambresis (3d April, 1559),
France agreeing to give up all her conquests. Indeed that country was
exhausted, and her treasury empty, and there was little hope that the
people would submit to additional taxation. Philip II. on his part was
equally glad to put an end to hostilities, which prevented him from
turning his attention to the progress of heresy in the Low Countries.
The treaty was regarded by the Reformers as “disgraceful and injurious
to the kingdom,” and with our subsequent knowledge we may add, full
of danger to the Reformers themselves. During the negotiations, which
lasted from January to April, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of
Lorraine had sought a private interview with the Spanish Minister
Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, at Peronne, in which they expressed their
devotion to Spain, and entered into a league for the extirpation of
heresy in Navarre, France, and the Netherlands.[67] What after-thought
there may have been in the cardinal’s mind is uncertain, but he had
probably hoped for the support of Spain in the ambitious views of his
family upon the crown of France.
The treaty had been concluded in opposition to the advice of the
Guises, who consequently fell into disgrace at court, while the
constable triumphed. Henry seems, indeed, never to have liked the
Lorraine family, and his feeling toward them is strongly marked in
a letter he wrote to Montmorency, then a prisoner: “I have been
constrained to create the Duke of Guise lieutenant-general; also
affairs have now compelled me to conclude the marriage of the dauphin
with the duke’s niece (Mary Stuart), and likewise to do many other
things. Time, however, _m’en fera raison_.”[68] By the treaty
the Cardinal of Lorraine lost three sees, and he swore to be avenged
of Montmorency and the admiral. In this he so far succeeded, with the
help of Diana of Potiers, who worked upon the king by stories of the
increase of heresy, that the persecution which had been suspended by
the war (except in the affair of the Rue St. Jacques), broke out again,
and was conducted with more regularity.
The Parliament of France was originally, like the Parliament of
England, a national council with functions both legislative and
judicial.[69] In the course of time a separation of classes and powers
took place: in England the judicial power fell into disuse, and the
Parliament became a mere legislative body; in France, the Parliament
lost its legislative authority, and subsided into a high court of
justice of last resort, and a court of revenue. It consisted of a
fixed number of churchmen, lay peers, and councillors--all equal in
voice and authority. Each province had its independent Parliament,
over which that of Paris asserted, but was rarely able to enforce,
its authority. In the early days of the new religious movement, the
Parliament of Paris was hardly less hostile than the Sorbonne to the
new doctrines; but as time rolled on and the principles of the Reform
were better known, the Parliament became divided in opinion. As in all
similar bodies, there were three parties: those who sympathized with
the religious reform movement, those who were opposed to it, and those
who, either from policy or coldness of temper, floated between the
two. To this party belonged the elder De Thou, Harlay, and Seguier,
all members of the Tournelle. On the last Wednesday in April, 1559,
Bourdin, the king’s proctor-general, made a proposition that as the
laws were enforced so irregularly--the Grand Chamber burning heretics
implacably, the Tournelle only banishing them, to the great scandal
of justice--the two courts should come to some arrangement by which
uniformity of action would be insured. Each judge gave his opinion, and
there was naturally great diversity of sentiment. Arnauld du Ferrier
proposed the convocation of a general council for the settlement of all
religious controversies, and that in the mean time all measures against
the Reformed should be suspended. This learned lawyer, like many others
of his day, not only did not appear to contemplate the possibility of
the Romish and the Reformed religions existing quietly side by side in
France, but thought the differences between the two were so trifling
that union might be restored by a few mutual concessions. Arnauld’s
proposal was supported by a majority of the meeting,[70] and, among
others, by Anthony Fumée, whose father and grandfather had filled
the highest judicial offices. He not only vindicated the Calvinistic
interpretation of the doctrine of the Lord’s-supper, but advised an
address to the king, praying him to summon a general council, in which
all erroneous doctrines should be exposed, and all heresies condemned;
and that the persecution of those who held heterodox opinions upon
secondary points should cease. The matter began to look so serious that
the Duchess of Valentinois urged Henry II. “to hang half a dozen at
least of the councillors as heretics,” and show Spain (with whom the
marriage-treaty between Philip II. and Isabella was going on) that he
was firm in the faith, and would not tolerate heresy. The Cardinal of
Lorraine strongly advised a similar course; while Marshal Vieilleville
tried to dissuade the king: “Sire,” he said, “if you think of going
to play the theologian or inquisitor, we must get the cardinal to
come and teach us how to hold our lances in the tournament.”[71] But
the churchman prevailed; not, however, until the king was threatened
with the anger of God if he refused a _Mercurial_ against those
free-thinking lawyers. These Mercurials were assemblies of the
Parliament held on Wednesday (_dies Mercurii_), at which the
members of that body were censured for any thing they might have done
contrary to their dignity or duty. The word was afterward extended
to the censure or judgment itself. On the 15th June, 1559, “after
dinner” (about noon) Henry, attended by the Cardinals of Lorraine
and Guise, unexpectedly entered the great hall of the Augustines’
convent, where the sittings of Parliament were temporarily held, just
as the councillors were discussing the means of settling a uniform
jurisprudence in heretical matters.[72] After taking his seat, the
king said: “I desire to secure the repose of my kingdom, and the
maintenance of religion. Having concluded a peace abroad, I will not
have it disturbed at home by religious disorders. For this reason I am
come among you, that I may hear what is your opinion about the present
religious differences, and know why you have not carried out my edicts
constraining the judges to condemn all Lutherans to death.” Undismayed
by the king’s presence, the moderate party defended what they had
done. Louis du Faur acknowledged that the present troubles were caused
by religion, but he added: “We must trace them back to their source,
lest we be exposed to the reproach the prophet Elijah made to King
Ahab: ‘I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house.’”
Anne du Bourg was equally bold in his language: “There are certain
crimes,” he said, “that deserve to be punished without mercy; such are
adultery, blasphemy, and perjury, which are countenanced daily by men
of disorderly life and infamous amours. But of what do men accuse those
who are handed over to the executioner? of treason?... They never omit
the name of the king from their prayers. What revolt have they headed?
what sedition have they stirred up? What! because they have discovered,
by the light of Holy Scripture, the great vices and the scandalous
offenses of the Roman Church--because they have petitioned for a
reform: is that an offense worthy of the stake?” The king trembled with
anger, but listened with pleasure to the first president, Gilles le
Maistre, who advised him to treat the new sectarians as the Albigenses
had been treated by Philip Augustus, who burned six hundred of them
in one day; and the Vaudois by Francis I., who killed them in their
own houses, or stifled them in the caverns to which they had fled for
refuge.[73] Henry closed the sitting by reprimanding the judges for
their laxness in administering the laws against heresy, and ordered
Du Faur and Du Bourg to be arrested--the first for having spoken of
Ahab, the second for condemning adultery, both of which the king
applied to himself. Montgomery, captain of the royal archers, seized
the two lawyers and conveyed them to the Bastille. This was the same
Montgomery who was shortly to be the innocent cause of Henry’s death,
and some years later to die on the scaffold as a heretic and traitor.
The two prisoners were put into separate dungeons, and denied the use
of paper, ink, and books, or communication with their friends. The
king, unwilling to leave them to be tried before an ordinary tribunal,
appointed a commission to hear and condemn them, unless they retracted,
and swore he would have them burned before his eyes.
Du Bourg’s arrest was not a solitary act of persecution. By the
treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, Henry and Philip had bound themselves
to maintain the Catholic worship inviolate, to assemble a general
council, and to extinguish heresy in their respective dominions.[74]
To William of Orange, rightly surnamed the Taciturn, then a hostage
for the due execution of the treaty, the king imparted the secret of
these negotiations with the King of Spain.[75] William listened, but
held his peace, and it was probably his knowledge of this projected
massacre--delayed for thirteen years--that converted him into the
liberator of the Netherlands.
The violence with which the storm of persecution raged may be conceived
from a few isolated examples. The edicts were enforced with such vigor
that the Reformed feared to meet in groups of more than twenty or
thirty at a time. In some places they ceased altogether to assemble,
or else they met in the woods and fields, in caves and quarries. Great
mystery was used in summoning the faithful together. On the evenings
when there was to be a sermon, a man would go through the streets and
whistle the signal. If there was reason to fear the watch or patrol,
the summoner carried a lantern of a peculiar form, and passed along
without uttering a word. The worshipers crept muffled up to the
place assigned, where they sang in a suppressed voice one of Marot’s
Psalms, prayed, and then separated, often without any sermon. It was
this meeting by night which gave a substance to the licentious and
calumnious stories told of the Reformed.[76]
The Parliament of Bordeaux received instructions to hold the “grand
jours,” or special assize, at Saintes, not that they might listen to
the grievances of the people, as was the ancient custom, but to operate
on a large scale against heresy. When all the prisons in Saintonge
were crammed, the rest of the heretics were sent to Bordeaux. In order
to remove the odium under which they labored, the Reformers of France
resolved to draw up a confession of their faith, and lay it before the
king, begging Anthony of Navarre, Governor of Guienne, to present it,
adding that they were prepared, if necessary, “one and all to seal
their faith with their blood.” But Anthony objected, and like a true
man of the world as he always was, advised them to keep quiet and
let the storm blow over. It was in circumstances such as these--in
the “midst of burning piles, and gibbets erected in every corner of
the city”--that the first Protestant synod met in Paris (May, 1559),
and continued sitting four days. Francis Morel, sire of Collonges, a
gentleman by birth, and now pastor of the metropolitan church, was
their president. Not more than a dozen provincial churches--there
is a slight discrepancy in the numbers--sent deputies; but, being
earnest men, they soon succeeded in giving French Protestantism the
organization which it has preserved, with few trifling exceptions,
until the present day. The church in Paris had been the first to
organize itself with pastor, elders, and deacons,[77] and the example
was speedily followed by many provincial cities; but these churches
were all isolated, and it was felt that by uniting into one body, they
would be stronger against their enemies, as well as richer in the
divine graces.
In thus assembling together the deputies carried their lives in their
hands, for, by an edict then in force, all preachers found in the
kingdom were to be put to death. But, undeterred by peril, they drew
up a Confession of Faith and a Book of Discipline, each consisting of
forty articles. In the former the doctrine of non-resistance was laid
down with a thoroughness somewhat startling. Thus the fortieth article
says: “We must obey the laws and ordinances, pay tribute, tax, and
other dues, and bear the yoke of subjection with good and hearty will,
even should the magistrates be infidels.... Furthermore, we detest
those who would reject superiorities, set up a community of goods, and
overthrow the order of justice.” The synod clenched these doctrines by
reference to Matthew xvii. 24, and Acts vi. 17–19. Calvin’s opinions
on this point are briefly shown in one of his sermons delivered three
or four years later: “All principalities are types of the kingdom of
Jesus Christ; we must hold them precious, and pray God to make them
prosper.”[78] Yet the ecclesiastical constitution which he drafted was
entirely republican in form, every thing being made to depend upon
the votes of the people, who elected a consistory (or kirk-session),
which chose the pastor, whose final appointment rested on the decision
of the congregation. A certain number of churches formed a conference
or presbytery which met twice a year, and in which each church was
represented by the pastor and one elder. These presbyteries united into
provincial synods, and above them all presided a general assembly, the
supreme court of legislation and appeal, composed of two pastors and
two elders from each provincial synod.
There can be little doubt that this organization of the Reformed
churches added another element of strife to the contest between the
two religions. The Romish clergy naturally abhorred it, as a sign
of the increasing power and boldness of the Reformed party; while
the statesmen of the day could not but look upon it with suspicion
as a sort of _imperium in imperio_--a dangerous rival to the
civil power, and savoring of rebellion, inasmuch as it ignored the
headship alike of pope and king, acknowledging that of God alone. Men
did not take the trouble to examine closely into the causes of their
dislike: they felt instinctively that such an organization proclaimed
the sovereignty of the people, and that the doctrine might easily be
extended from spiritual to temporal matters. The subsequent history
of the chief Calvinistic churches shows that this instinctive hatred
was not altogether unreasonable. In Switzerland and Holland, in
England and in North America, wherever this organization has been able
to control the political power, a republic has followed. These are
indeed the parts of the world where liberty flourishes most, and for
this noble fruit we may well love the tree that bore it; but in the
sixteenth century, the tendency of society was toward despotism, not
toward self-government; and the statesmen of Europe must be excused
if they were not clear-sighted enough to see that the new movement
must inevitably succeed, or wise enough to become the leaders and
controllers of the popular feelings. And so far it may be doubted
whether Calvin’s influence in France was altogether for good, and
whether the Reformed Church would not have struck deeper root in that
country, if its organization had been less antagonistic. By separating
itself entirely from antiquity, it risked a doubtful good for a certain
evil. As church-government is not a matter of faith but of discipline,
those have much to answer for who array Christians in hostile ranks on
a secondary matter.
The news of this synod and the merciful tendency of the Parliament
inflamed Henry’s orthodoxy to such an extent that he issued an edict
(June, 1559) more terrible even than those which had gone before.
It was dated from Ecouen, a castle belonging to the constable, and
situated about four leagues north of Paris. By that decree all
convicted Lutherans were to be punished with death--instant and without
the chance of remission. It was registered by all the Parliaments
without any limitation or modification whatsoever, and the judges were
forbidden, under severe penalties, to diminish the pains of the edict,
as they had lately been in the habit of doing. Such terrible powers
could scarcely have failed completely to eradicate heresy, if they
had been carried out as Henry II. intended they should be. But there
was a providence watching over France, by which the religionists were
unexpectedly saved from the jaws of the lion.
One of the regulations of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was that
Philip II.--now a widower through the death of Mary of England in
the preceding November--should marry Henry’s sister, Elizabeth of
Valois, then just turned of thirteen. The betrothal was to take place
at Paris, and thither came the Duke of Alva, attended by a numerous
suite of nobles and gentlemen. Even at such a time, when we might
suppose the king entirely occupied with nuptial festivities--for his
sister Margaret was also to be married--he proposed a crusade against
Geneva, “that sink of all corruption,”[79] and, but a few hours before
his death, he had given Montgomery instructions about an expedition
on a grand scale into the Pays de Caux for the extermination of the
Reformed. But the finger of God was upon him.
On the 26th June,[80] the Spanish marriage was celebrated, the Duke of
Alva acting as proxy for Philip II. Magnificent rejoicings followed
the ceremony, and a tournament was held in the lists erected at the
end of the Rue St. Antoine. It must have been a grand sight, that
old historic street. In front of the palace of the Tournelles stood
a gallery in which sat the youthful Queen of Spain under a canopy of
blue silk, ornamented with the device of her husband whom she had
not yet seen. Around her were grouped men destined to become famous
in history: Alva, the Prince of Orange, and Count Egmont. Catherine
sat in a gallery apart, with Mary Stuart on her right, and Margaret,
affianced to the Duke of Savoy, on her left. The king had declared his
intention of entering the lists, in order to display his skill before
the Spanish grandees. As if foreseeing evil, the queen besought him
to forego the dangerous pastime; but, confident in himself, he only
laughed at her fears. After two successful encounters with the Dukes of
Savoy and Guise, he challenged Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery.
De Lorges was captain of Henry’s Scotch guard, and had been sent to
Scotland by Francis I. in 1545, in command of the troops dispatched
to the assistance of the queen-regent Mary of Guise. In the first
course the advantage lay with the count, and the king, chafed by such a
partial discomfiture, challenged him to try another turn. The queen and
Marshal de Vieilleville entreated him to be satisfied, and Montgomery
declined a second encounter. But Henry would take no refusal. Once more
they met; their lances were shivered, but both retained their seats.
Again the trumpets sounded, again they spurred their horses, when
Montgomery’s lance struck the king’s helmet, knocked off the plume,
and snapped in two, a splinter from the lower portion of the shaft
entering his right eye. There was a loud shriek from the royal gallery,
which for a moment distracted the attention of the spectators from
the king, who had lost all command over his horse, and was reeling in
his saddle. The attendants were hardly quick enough to save him from
falling to the ground. His helmet was loosed and the splinter pulled
out. It was “of a good bigness,” says the English embassador, who was
an eye-witness.[81] “Nothing else was done to him upon the field;
but I noted him to be very weak, and to have the feeling of all his
limbs almost benumbed; for being carried away as he lay along, nothing
covered but his face, he moved neither hand nor foot, but lay as one
amazed. There was marvelous great lamentation made for him, and weeping
of all sorts, both men and women.” The wound proved more serious than
Throckmorton had imagined: Henry never left his bed again. Twice he
received the last sacraments of the Church, and calling for his son
Francis, “commended the Church and the people to his care.” After an
interval of repose--for the exertion of uttering these few words was
almost too great for him--he added: “Above all things, remain steadfast
in the true faith.”[82] Henry II. died on the 10th of July, leaving
behind him four sons, three of whom wore the crown of France. He also
left three daughters and a bastard son, Henry of Angoulême, who cruelly
distinguished himself at the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
The Protestants were accused of rejoicing at Henry’s death: they not
only made songs upon it, but “offered thanks, or rather blasphemies,
to God, daring to say that the Almighty had struck him under the walls
of the Bastille, where he detained the innocent in prison.”[83] It is
possible that there may be some foundation for this charge, for it
requires a great amount of true Christian feeling to make the victims
forbear from exulting at the removal of their persecutor by what seems
to them the judgment of God. In his dedicatory epistle of the _Psalms
done into French Verse_, Beza thus paints the second Henry:
Je vois un masque avec sa maigre mine
Qui fait trembler les lieux où il chemine.
But the “Lutherans” did not tremble: they bore their testimony with
Christian resolution, and acted up to the noble lines in the same poem:
S’il faut servir au Seigneur de témoins,
Mourons, mourons, louans Dieu pour le moins.
Au départir de ces lieux misérables,
Pour traverser aux cieux tant désirables.
_Que les tyrans soient de nous martyrer
Plutôt lassés, que nous de l’endurer._
The sincerity of Catherine’s grief for the loss of her husband has
been much doubted, but without sufficient cause. To a woman of her
temper the change wrought in her position by widowhood must at first
have been hard to bear. She certainly felt as much for her husband
while living, as such selfish natures can feel, and commemorated her
bereavement and regret in the ornaments of her palace of the Tuileries,
where the broken mirrors, plumes reversed, and scattered jewelry carved
on certain columns have been regarded as emblems of her sorrow.[84] A
garrulous contemporary (whom we shall have frequent occasion to quote),
lamenting the death of Henry II., praises him particularly for the
discipline he introduced into the army,[85] which was such “that the
peasants hardly deigned to shut the doors of their cellars, granaries,
chests, or other lock-up places for fear of the soldiers, who conducted
themselves most becomingly. When billeted in the villages, they would
not venture to touch the hens or other poultry without first asking
their host’s leave and paying for them.”[86] It is a pity to spoil
so Arcadian a story; but if it is true, there must have been a sad
falling off in the military discipline in a few months, for Francis II.
writes in 1560 to the Duke of Aumale, then in Burgundy, “to punish the
men-at-arms and archers who had lived without paying.”[87]