FRANCE AT THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES IX.
[1560.]
Contrast--Power of King and Nobles--The Provinces--Roads--Rate
of Traveling--Forests--Wild Animals--Brigandage--Inns--League
of the Loire--Agriculture--Condition of the
Peasantry--Rent--Serfage--Wages--Cost of
Provisions--Food--Sumptuary Laws--Social Changes--Ignorance of
the People--Population of France--Taxation--Army and Navy--The
Clergy--Superstitions--Justice--Punishments--Brutality of
Manners--Domestic Architecture--Paris--Cities of France:
Orleans, Rouen, Bordeaux, Dieppe, Lyons, Boulogne, Dijon,
Moulins, and St. Etienne.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, France was not the centralized,
orderly, well-policed country which the traveler of the nineteenth
century is so eager to visit, and which he leaves with so much regret.
It was in name a monarchy; but unless the king were a man of resolute
will, he became a mere pageant in the state. The nobility inherited
much of the haughty turbulent spirit of their Frank ancestors, and
despite--if not in consequence of--what Louis XI. had done, they still
looked upon the sovereign as little more than the first among peers,
_primus inter pares_, paying him the respect due to his position
as their nominal superior; but resisting him when they pleased, and
only kept in order by the power of rival barons. When Montluc summoned
the mutinous nobles of the South to return to their allegiance, and
obey the king, they exclaimed: “What king? We are the king. The one
you speak of is a baby king: we will give him the rod, and show him
how to earn his living like other people.” It was very much in this
spirit that the house of Guise behaved toward Francis II. and his two
successors.
France was divided into numerous provinces,[159] partially independent
under their own governors and parliaments, and with hardly more
sympathy between them than there is now between Belgium and Holland.
In almost every province you heard a separate dialect: the Normans
and the Gascons were mutually unintelligible, and the inhabitant of
Brittany had as little in common with the dweller in Languedoc as the
Sussex boor with his fellow-laborer in Picardy. The river Loire divided
the kingdom into two parts--morally as well as geographically. Even to
this day the traveler observes a difference between the people, their
speech, their customs, and their dress, immediately he crosses that
boundary line. Great part of the country north of the Loire had for
centuries been governed by traditionary rules similar to our common
law; to the south, the code of Justinian had never fallen into complete
desuetude; and the forms--shadowy enough sometimes--of the Roman
municipalities still existed. The former had a strong resemblance to
England as it was at the close of the Wars of the Roses; the latter
reminded the Italian traveler of his native land. On both sides of the
river there was the same impatience of that central authority which
the modern Frenchman worships. The provincial parliaments registered
or rejected the king’s decrees at their pleasure, and the taxes were
levied by order of their own estates; self-government in form more than
in reality. The governor of many a petty castle would set at naught the
king’s express orders.
Nothing has greater power to amalgamate the various parts of an empire,
and smooth away differences, than good roads. Three (some reckon four)
royal roads, passing through the whole length of France--the great
highways constructed by the Roman conquerors of Gaul--were kept in
tolerable condition, as the importance of such great arteries required;
but the lateral communications were, with few exceptions, in a most
unsatisfactory state. In winter, when the rivers overflowed their
banks, or the snow lay deep, large towns within a few miles of each
other were completely cut off from all intercourse. It often happened
that one district was suffering from famine, while its neighbor had
more than it could consume. The wines which in Anjou and the Orleannais
sold for one sol the measure and even less, cost twenty and twenty-four
sols in Normandy and Picardy. Sometimes this scarcity and variation
in price may have been occasioned by foolish local restrictions upon
the importation and exportation of provisions; but the more frequent
cause was the want of branch roads--those which existed being often
mere horse-tracks, and as impassable in bad weather as the famous road
from Balaklava to Inkermann. Catherine de Medicis, “flying on the wings
of desire and maternal affection,” went from Paris to Tours in three
days.[160] Joan of Navarre, traveling with “extraordinary speed,” spent
eighteen days on the road from Compiègne to Paris. It took eight days
to carry the news of the St. Bartholomew Massacre to Toulouse along
one of the best roads in France, and the same time to go from Mende
to Paris. Thirty years later it took Coryat five hours to travel from
Montreuil to Abbeville, a distance of twenty miles, his carriage being
a two-wheeled cart covered with an awning stretched over thin hoops,
not unlike that still used by our village carriers. In 1560 L’Hopital
was twelve days going from Nice to St. Vallier (Drome), and he too was
hurrying on as quickly as possible. Lippomano, the Venetian embassador,
traveling on urgent business, could not exceed four leagues a day.
These examples, taken from various parts of France, and from persons of
different degrees of social rank, show decisively the difficulties of
communication.
This had much to do with the isolation of various parts of France. In
the sixteenth century nobody traveled who could help it. To journey
from Paris to Toulouse, now a matter of a few hours by railway, was
then a work of time and danger. Large forests were numerous--of twenty
miles and more in circuit: there was one near Blois of not less than
ninety miles. Here the brown bear, the wild boar, and the deer still
roamed at liberty. In the forest of Landeac, the Viscount Rohan
preserved a drove of six hundred wild horses. Wolves would occasionally
issue from the forests, and ravage the country in packs, as they still
do in Poland and Russia.[161] In 1548 one of these packs issued from
the forest of Orleans, devouring men, women, and children, until the
peasantry rose _en masse_ to exterminate them.[162] But worse
than these hungry animals were the brigands who found shelter “in the
merry greenwood,” preying upon their neighbors, and especially upon
travelers. One band of ruffians, five hundred in number, roamed the
country, storming towns and castles, burning villages and farmsteads,
pillaging, murdering, and committing fouler atrocities. Travelers
rarely journeyed alone: they formed into a sort of caravan, sometimes
escorted by soldiers, hardly less to be feared than the robbers
themselves. If the adventurous merchant passed safely through forest
and over heath, he arrived at an inn to find himself carefully classed.
If he journeyed on foot, he could not dine and lodge like one who went
on horseback. The dinner of the first was fixed by tariff at six sols,
and the bed at eight; the latter paid respectively twelve and twenty.
In many cases the traveler had to carry his bed and food with him, or
he would have to go without.
The rivers, now so full of busy life, were rarely disturbed by oar or
sail; and up to the reign of Charles IX. the merchants trading along
the Loire were forced to combine into a hanse or league in order to
protect their property from plunder and excessive toll. They entered
into treaties with the riverain Rob Roys, paying an annual black-mail
which saved them from still greater exactions.[163] It was rare to find
a bridge without fort and bar which none could pass, by land or water,
without payment of pontage.
The country was better cultivated than might have been expected from
the rude implements employed; but then, far more than now, the fields
were rarely divided by hedges. In Beauce, the traveler might journey
for many a long mile through a fertile district, where the corn rippled
in golden waves beneath the summer sun; but there was no plantation,
scarcely a tree upon which to rest the weary eye. Few signs of life
were visible from the highway: the peasants, for so many centuries the
victims of foreign or domestic war, had wisely built their huts in the
hollows and valleys, as far as possible removed from the routes of the
brigands who composed the armies of those days.[164] Here and there a
moated grange, or isolated farm-house, was visible, with its cluster
of fruit-trees, a greener oasis in the surrounding plain; but it was
enclosed with a high wall.
The lot of the agricultural population--of farmers as well as of
laborers--was a hard one. Serfage still existed in many places, and the
ploughman or the hedger could no more wander in search of employment,
or higher wages, than the low-roofed church in which he was christened,
where he was married, and beneath whose shadow his weary limbs would
rest at last. Rent was usually paid in kind or in service. If in
kind, it was a certain share of the produce, which in Brittany was
a twelfth.[165] But the great influx of gold and silver consequent
upon the discovery of America was gradually introducing money rents,
which, however, were so variable and uncertain, that no average appears
possible. In Auvergne, in 1514, we find it as high as seven sols an
acre, and in 1568 as low as four deniers and a measure (setier) of
seigle. Although the feudal superior was gradually passing into the
modern landlord, serfage was so tenacious of life that it existed more
than two centuries longer. Only two years before the outbreak of the
Revolution the serfs of twenty-three communities belonging to the abbey
of Luxeul refused to be emancipated, choosing to remain as they were
rather than pay the moderate fine required for their enfranchisement.
A few months later the serfs of Trépot had consented to pay the sum
demanded by their lord, when the Revolution came and freed them
gratuitously.[166]
The agricultural population had been almost untouched by that spirit
of progress which had been felt in the great cities and towns, and had
led the way to the revival of religion. Their condition was hardly
better than in the days of Louis XII., when the farmer was at times
compelled to plough his land by night, lest the tax-gatherers, who
swarmed like locusts, should come and seize his cattle. The peasants
in their remonstrance added piteously: “And when they are taken, we
yoke ourselves to the plough.” Their houses were like the cabins
still to be met with in the south and west of Ireland, and in the
remoter parts of Scotland. In Brittany the traveler may still see many
such dwellings--clay or mud-built, covered with turf or rushes from
the neighboring pool. The beaten earth was the floor, a man could
rarely stand upright beneath its low roof. In that single room, often
windowless, the whole family huddled together. They were without the
commonest comforts now rarely absent from the laborer’s cottage. The
rate of labor was not high, and most of the payments were in kind. A
laboring man received twelve deniers a day and a woman six: this was
at a time when a dozen eggs cost eight deniers, a bushel of turnips
four deniers, a fowl from two to six sols, a calf five livres, a sheep
twenty-four sols, a fat pig three livres, and an ox, three or four
years old, ten livres. The setier or twelve bushels of wheat sold for
twenty sols, the same quantity of rye for ten, of barley for eight, and
of oats for five. These are but uncertain data on which to calculate
the purchasing power of a man’s wages, for at that time prices varied
considerably more in different localities and from year to year than
they do now.[167] Black unleavened bread--the “damper” of the gold
diggings--formed the principal article of food among the poorer people,
and was made of rye, barley, or buckwheat.[168] Maize appears to have
been used more for cattle than for men. About thirteen years before
the time of which we are treating, the poor of La Mans supported
themselves during a famine upon acorn bread. The usual meat was pork or
bacon--a diet which is supposed to have contributed to the virulence
of the leprosy in earlier days, and hence a _languayeur_ had been
appointed, whose sole business it was to examine the pigs’ tongues for
leprosy spots. The odious _gabelle_ made salt so dear that the
farmer had often to sell one-half of a pig to procure the means of
pickling the other half.
The people of the sixteenth century were gross and unclean eaters,
delighting in viands we should now relegate to the tables of the
Esquimaux. Thus they would eat dog-fish, porpoise,[169] and whale, as
well as herons, cormorants, bitterns, cranes, and storks. Champier
saw on the table of Francis I. “a pudding made of the blood, fat, and
entrails of the sea-calf.” Frogs[170] fricasseed, snails boiled, and
tortoises stewed in their shells were among the “dainty dishes” of this
period. To wash such coarse viands down the people drank so much beer
that the tax on it produced two-thirds more than the tax upon wine.
The beer was sweet, for hops (if introduced) were scarce; and it was
“doctored” by the addition of aromatics, spice, butter, honey, apples,
bread-crumbs, etc. A taste for unsophisticated liquors is one of the
results of advancing civilization.
These were the times of sumptuary laws and other regulations to
preserve the distinction of ranks, and fill the treasury at the expense
of human vanity. Custom, quite as much as law, regulated the costumes
of the different classes, from the silks and the scarlet robes of
the nobles to the blue serge of the laborer. But on fête and gala
days, which were more numerous than now, the variety of costumes was
strikingly picturesque, especially where the inhabitants of different
provinces met together. The tendency of modern civilization to bring
every thing to one monotonous uniformity has robbed us of this variety.
It still lingers here and there in France, where the women with
honest pride cling to the costume peculiar to their calling, while
the men have become lost in the common herd.[171] No bourgeois could
build what sort of house he pleased; nor, when built, was he free to
decorate it as he liked. Even the number of steps up to the door was
regulated by law. The house might be painted with certain colors,
but gilding was strictly prohibited.[172] In 1867 there is scarcely
a mechanic so poor that his wife can not boast of a silk gown, but,
three hundred years ago, no woman, below the rank of duchess, except
“dames et demoiselles de maison” living “à la campagne et hors des
villes,” could wear any silk except as trimming, and then only under
certain restrictions, so that the “fashion” should not cost more than
sixty sols for each dress.[173] Nay, worse than that, a fine of two
hundred livres _parisis_ awaited any woman who should venture
to wear a _vertugale_ or hooped petticoat more than an ell and
a half round--a restriction which a modern house-maid would think
very tyrannical. Although silk was not so scarce as these regulations
would seem to imply, certain manufactures of it were so rare that
historians record that Henry II. wore silk stockings at his coronation.
Thirty years later such an article of dress was still regarded as an
extravagant and wicked luxury.[174] The Ordonnance of Orleans (1560)
forbade the use of perfumery among certain classes, who seem to have
had no other resource but to shut up a particular kind of apple in
their wardrobes in order to impregnate their dresses with its odor.
Sumptuary laws regulated the meals. By the edict of January, 1563,
Charles IX. forbade more than three courses, no course to consist
of more than six dishes, each containing one kind of viand. The
entertainer who infringed this impracticable law was fined 200 livres
for the first offense, and 400 for the second; the guests who did not
turn informers against their hosts were fined forty livres; while the
unfortunate cook, who merely obeyed his master’s orders, was fined
ten livres and imprisoned for a fortnight with only bread and water
for his fare. For a second offense the penalty was doubled; and if he
transgressed a third time, he was scourged and banished from the town.
Experience has shown legislators the impossibility of restraining
luxury by sumptuary laws; yet the statesmen of the fifteenth century
may be excused for attempting thus clumsily to check the extravagant
fashions of the day. Brantome describes, with all the minuteness of a
modern reporter at a city dinner, the particulars of a banquet given
by the Vidame of Chartres. The ceiling of the dining-hall, which was
painted to represent the sky, suddenly opened, and clouds laden with
dishes descended upon the tables. The same contrivance was used to
remove the dishes. During the dessert an artificial storm poured down
for half an hour a rain of perfumed water and a hail of sugar-plums.
One great social change took place about this period. “The women,”
writes L’Hopital to De Thou, “are _now_ seen boldly sitting down
at table with the men.” Before that time, it was the custom for the
husband only to sit with his guests, while the mistress of the house
attended to the manner in which the table was served. Christopher de
Thou, father of the historian, was the first person, not of royal
or noble blood, who rode in a carriage in Paris. Until then there
were only two in use at the court--the queen’s and that belonging to
Diana, natural daughter of Henry II. Carriages were rarely employed
for traveling purposes: the roads were, for the most part, too bad
for vehicles much less rude than the country wains that bore the
produce of the farm to market. Those who could not afford the pomp of
litters rode on horseback: the ladies sometimes on a pillion behind
a servant,[175] but frequently astride, like the men. Catherine de
Medicis introduced the side-saddle. In 1571 a royal permission was
granted for “coches à la mode d’Italie” to go from Paris to Orleans--a
privilege soon extended to other cities of France “pour le soulagement
de personnes.”[176] In 1562 forty-six post-horses were registered in
Paris, the hire seems to have been twenty sols each a day.
The dispatches of Killigrew, embassador to the court of France about
this time, present a striking picture of the misery and ignorance of
the lower classes. On the 15th November, 1559, he writes: “It is very
secretly reported that the French king is become a leper, and for fear
of his coming to Chatelherault the people have (it is said) removed
their children; and of late there be certain of them wanting about
Tours, which can not be heard of, and there is commandment given that
there shall not be any pursuit made for the same.” A horrible light
is thrown on these last words by a letter of the 28th January, 1560:
“The 20th of this present month there was a man executed here at Blois,
who lately, with a companion, traveled abroad in the country to seek
fair children, to use their blood for curing of a disease which, they
said, the king had: alleging that they had a command so to do. The one
of them used to go before to make search for them, and the other came
after to ask if such a man had been there for such a purpose: whereupon
the people made lamentation for their children.” It was of course only
an impudent means of extorting money.
The population of France at the accession of Charles IX. has been
variously estimated, but it probably did not much (if at all) exceed
fifteen millions, of whom almost one-third lived in towns. Yet
complaints of over-population were frequent; and La Noue, speaking of
the multitude of inhabitants before the religious wars, says: “They
swarm!” They paid in taxation a greater proportional amount than is
contributed by their more numerous and fortunate posterity under the
second empire. Finance was in its infancy, and taxes were levied so
as to produce the greatest amount of vexation to the payer and the
smallest result to the royal treasury. At the end of the century--forty
years later than the period at which we have arrived--the duties and
aids were farmed for 232 millions of livres, equivalent to £42,000,000
sterling.[177]
Taxes were imposed upon no regular plan, and whatever arrangement was
made, it was liable to be broken through by the “good pleasure” of
the king. This was especially the case in the reign of Francis I.,
whose subjects, when groaning under oppressive charges of _tailles_,
_taillons_, _aides_, _subsides_, _impôts_, and _gabelle_, looked back
and longed for the good old times of Louis XII. Francis squandered
his income in the most reckless manner; every body plundered the
national exchequer, especially his favorites and mistresses. So great
were the expenses of the marriage (the _nôces salées_) of his niece
Joan of Albret with the Duke of Cleves in 1541, that to make up the
deficiency he not only extended the gabelle or salt tax to several
of the southern provinces, but doubled it in those where it already
existed, expecting that the returns would be doubled also. In this
he was disappointed, and new sources of revenue had to be invented.
The coinage was debased, raising the value of the silver mark from
£165 to £185;[178] a multitude of offices was created, all to be had
for money; judgeships were made venal, lotteries were established,
additional _décimes_ imposed on the clergy;[179] the churches were
robbed of their ornaments of gold, silver, and precious gems;[180]
loans were raised by means of _rentes_ or stock offered for sale at
the Hotel-de-Ville of Paris, and the citizens were expected to become
purchasers. Eightscore thousand crowns were thus borrowed _au denier
douze_; that is to say, at 8⅓ per cent. The superintendents of finance
were bound to procure money, even if they had to borrow it on their own
security; and, when all other means failed, and a large sum was wanted
instantly for some royal caprice or some new mistress, a financier
was hanged and his property confiscated. Such measures necessarily
discontented every body and profited none but a few persons at court;
yet by some means or other Francis I. contrived to leave four millions
of livres in the treasury, which Henry II., aided by Diana of Poitiers,
soon squandered. The new king took one important step toward financial
accountability by dividing the kingdom into seventeen généralités,
each of which was farmed at a very high rate.[181] Under his two
successors, the government speculated in French vanity by making titles
of nobility purchasable. Pasquier thought this an “inexhaustible source
of supply,” but it does not appear to have made any large return to
the treasury. The “deficit” became periodical, and to fill up the gulf
the taxes (especially the gabelle) were augmented,[182] financiers
were prosecuted and heavily mulcted, many useless offices were created
on purpose to be sold, and new loans were contracted. Among other
devices--all of them very startling to a modern chancellor of the
exchequer--was a proposal to appoint 13,000 sergens, or baillies.
Pasquier hopes this will not be done, for “it would eclipse the memory
of the 11,000 devils spoken of in the time of our grandfathers.”
The taxation fell very heavily on the Tiers état, and particularly
upon the agricultural classes. The towns-people, the bourgeoisie,
were to some degree protected by charters and privileges, and had an
organization of their own by which the taxes were levied. They were
exempt from foreign garrisons, elected their own officers (with the
exception of the provost of the merchants), enrolled a citizen guard,
and had the right to barricade the streets and shut their gates,
even against the king.[183] No charters or securities guaranteed the
peasant from injustice. Michieli, writing in 1561, describes the
oppression in some provinces (especially in Normandy and Picardy)
as so excessive, that the peasantry were forced to abandon the
country.[184] The burdens were the more severe and invidious, that
while the seigneurs mercilessly exacted their rents, dues, corvées,
customs, etc., they contributed nothing to the state beyond what
they gave of their free-will as a gift. Clergy, nobility, soldiers,
members of the king’s household, and of the high courts of parliament,
school-masters, officers of finance, free cities (villes de franchise)
like Paris, and noble cities (villes nobles) like Troyes, were all
exempt; not that they did not contribute to the revenue, but only
so much as they chose to assess themselves. In the reign of Francis
I. the French clergy, with the consent of the pope, agreed to pay a
_décime_, or one-tenth of their revenue, which in the next reign
was doubled. At Poissy, in 1561, they entered into an arrangement to
pay sixteen hundred thousand livres annually, on condition of their
future exemption from all other taxes. Considering that they possessed
about one-third of the landed and house-property in France, this was
but a small contribution to the necessities of the crown. The yearly
rental of the whole kingdom has been estimated, on what are indeed very
vague data, to have amounted to fifteen millions of crowns, of which
six belonged to the clergy[185] and one and a half to the king. The
exports of corn, wine, salt, and wood were valued at twelve millions of
francs, more than Spain received from her mines of Mexico and Peru.
The army and the navy are the great causes of expenditure in our days;
but in the sixteenth century both were so insignificant that their
burden was hardly appreciable. France has now about three-quarters
of a million of men under arms, but in 1560 the army barely amounted
to 20,000 men, and these were so scattered, and under so many local
restrictions, that the crown could not collect 10,000 men without the
aid of mercenaries. Although the main strength consisted in cavalry,
the importance of infantry was beginning to be felt. They were long
looked upon as a very inferior arm; indeed, the feeling is not yet
extinct in some countries; but every improvement in fire-arms so
increased the power of the foot-soldier, that far-sighted men began
to see that the victory must ultimately remain with the general who
could make the best use of his infantry. The artillery was rude and
awkward; the guns were clumsily mounted, and the balls rarely fitted
the barrel. With all these defects it must not excite surprise that on
an average they could not be discharged more than once in five minutes.
When fixed in battery, they might be trusted to breach the wall of a
city or castle, where the object of the engineer seems to have been to
expose as much as possible of his defenses to the fire of the enemy.
The cannons were almost utterly useless in the field against a body of
men in motion; but the noise they made proved at times as effectual in
dispiriting the enemy as their accuracy of fire. The army was officered
by the nobility: a commoner might rise to be a sergeant, but it was
impossible for him to obtain a commission. It was partly on this ground
of unpaid military service that the nobles claimed exemption from
taxation.
The French navy existed but in name. When Francis I. was at war with
England he brought twenty-five galleys from the Mediterranean into the
Channel, the Genoese lent him ten vessels, and with others in his
harbors he mustered a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships of large
tonnage, and sixty small ones. One great ship of a hundred guns, called
the _Caracon_, had been built, but it never put to sea, being
burned in harbor. We are all familiar with the uncouth yet strangely
picturesque forms of those ships, standing high out of the water,
with their castles at each end, and looking as if a breath of wind
would blow them over. They were slow and bad sailers, deficient in
accommodation for their two crews--the soldiers to fight and the seamen
to sail them. The navy was not quite so exclusive and aristocratic
as the army; but if seamen worked the ship, landsmen as captains and
admirals commanded it, as they did, until comparatively a late period,
in our own service.
The clergy were the most wealthy body in the state. La Noue reckons
one hundred episcopal and archiepiscopal sees in France, 650 abbeys
belonging to the orders of St. Bernard and St. Benedict, all
“beautified with good kitchens” and 2500 priories. Jean Bouchet has
left a curious picture of the clergy at the early part of the century,
and there are no grounds for believing that they had at all improved in
the interval before his death in 1555. He complains that the candidates
for holy orders possess all the qualities not wanted, and none that
are. Of the cardinals and bishops he says, they ought to preach the
Gospel, and be
Du peuple la lumière,
Le bon exemple et la clarté première.
Montluc, Bishop of Valence, declared in a sermon preached in 1559,
that out of ten priests there were eight who could not read. We may
charitably suppose that he exaggerates.
The clergy by no means dwelt together in unity, and their quarrels
became such a nuisance that, in 1542, the bishops were commanded to
put a stop to the practice of delivering abusive sermons from the
pulpit. The order would seem to have been ineffectual, for, in 1556,
the priests were forbidden to preach unless they had first submitted
their sermons to the diocesan. This regulation may have been partly
intended as a watch over heretical opinions; but in the same year the
procurator-general issued an order of Parliament against all such as
had indulged in “abusive language” in the pulpit. The fact is, that
the sixteenth century was one of singular excitement in every respect.
Society was in travail. The clergy shared in the general restlessness,
and the press not being quick enough, they resorted to their pulpits to
refute an antagonist, and preached sermons instead of writing leading
articles. They spared nobody who attacked them, or did not support
them. A friar of the order of Minims, Jean de Haas by name, preached
in his Advent sermons (Dec., 1561) so violently against the edict of
that year, and the king and queen-mother for sanctioning it, that the
provost was ordered to arrest him “early in the morning,” and take him
bound and gagged to St. Germains; but the citizens, immediately they
heard of his capture, marched out in crowds to the royal residence,
and, irritated with this “indignity,” as Pasquier terms it, demanded
the preacher back. The king was forced to give him up, and Jean
returned in triumph to Paris, “as if he were a great prince.” The
next day he celebrated his deliverance by a solemn procession to the
Church of St. Bartholomew.[186] At the beginning of 1572 Sorbin, the
king’s preacher, declaimed violently against the king because he would
not give immediate orders for murdering the Huguenots, and publicly
exhorted the Duke of Anjou to undertake the task himself, holding
out hopes to him of the primogeniture, as Jacob prevailed over Esau.
But the heretics could be as violent as the orthodox. The Huguenot
ministers poured the rankest abuse on what John Knox called “the
monstrous regiment of women;” and some of them--unless they are greatly
belied--even went so far as to preach regicide. The minister Sureau
was arrested for saying that it was lawful to kill the king and his
mother, if they did not accept the Gospel according to Calvin.[187]
The state of public opinion with regard to the clergy can be more
easily detected in the amusements of the people than in the writings of
scholars, or the acts of government. Before the Reformation there was
a strong anti-papal feeling throughout Europe, which showed itself in
the light literature of the day--the tales, the poetry, and the dramas
with which all classes amused their leisure hours. For instance, in the
tales ascribed to Margaret of Navarre, and in the grotesque romance
of Gargantua, monks and the secular clergy are the chief victims. In
the rude theatrical representations of this time, the abuses of the
Church are dealt with most unsparingly. One of these was exhibited
before the King of Navarre and his wife, the pious Joan of Albret, in
the year 1558. In the first scene a poor woman is represented as at the
point of death, and crying loudly for relief from her sufferings. The
sympathizing gossips round her bed send off hastily for the parson, who
goes through the usual religious ceremonial, but fails to alleviate
her anguish. Then several monks appear--some bearing relics, others
indulgences--none of which bring relief. She is next invested with the
frock and scapulary of St. Francis, but this too fails to restore her
to health. At length, after much good advice has been wasted, one of
the bystanders says there is a stranger in the town who has a certain
specific for the poor woman’s pains. He will guarantee a perfect cure;
but the man is a homeless wanderer, who hides himself from the eyes of
the world, flees the light of day, lives in obscure corners, and comes
out at night only. The sufferer begs that he may be sent for, and after
much trouble he is found. He appears in dress and gait like other men.
Approaching the sick bed, he whispers something in the patient’s ear,
places a little book in her hand, which he assures her is full of
remedies for her disorder, and vanishes. And so the scene ends.
In the next, we find the woman restored to perfect health: her eyes
sparkle with animation, and she can walk with ease. She announces
her recovery, eulogizes the unknown physician, extols his remedy,
and recommends it to the audience. She adds that she would willingly
lend it, “but it is hot to the touch, and smells of fire and faggot.”
However, if they desire to know the name of the remedy and of the
disease of which she had been cured, they must find it out for
themselves. She retired amid loud applause, and the spectators of that
day found no more difficulty in solving the enigma than we do.[188]
The ritual and services of the Church were not free from superstitious
usages. The more the substance of religion died out in their hearts,
the more the clergy adhered to the forms. Thus not to fast on Friday
was a heinous sin; and at Angers, in 1539, those who were found to have
eaten meat on that day were burned alive if they remained impenitent,
and hanged if they repented. The poet Clement Marot narrowly escaped
burning for having eaten pork in Lent. “If any one eats meat,” says
Erasmus, they all cry out: “Heavens! the Church is in danger; the
world is overrun with heretics.” They punish every one who “eats pork
instead of fish.” In 1534 the Bishop of Paris gave the Countess of
Brie permission to eat meat on “meagre” days, but only on condition
that she ate in private and fasted regularly every Friday. Brantome
relates that, during a procession in a certain country town, one woman
attracted peculiar attention by her fervor, even to walking barefoot.
She then went home to prepare her husband’s dinner. The smell of roast
meat attracting the notice of some priests, they entered the house and
caught her in the act of cooking, for which she was sentenced forthwith
to go in penance through the streets carrying the half-roasted meat
round her neck. The morals of the clergy were very relaxed, and they
would hardly have thanked Lippomano if they had read his doubtful
compliment.[189] But this is a subject upon which it would be as
superfluous as it would be disagreeable to enlarge.
The sixteenth century was an age of superstitions, the inevitable
parasites of a debased religion, and often stronger than religion
itself. Both Catherine and Charles IX. had their astronomers and
alchemists; and an agreement is extant between the king and one Jean
des Gallans, in which the latter promises to transmute “all imperfect
metals into fine gold and silver.”[190] The early death of Charles is
ascribed by Bodin to his having spared the life of the famous sorcerer
Trois Échelles.[191] Catherine was so credulous as to believe that La
Mole and Coconnas had compassed the king’s death by melting a waxen
image of him before the fire, and they were particularly “questioned,”
or tortured, as to whether they had not _envouté_ Charles IX. A
singular chain, or amulet, once worn by the queen-mother, has been
often engraved.[192] Nostradamus was the great oracle of the age, and
thousands visited the little town of Salon in Provence to purchase of
him the secrets of the future. He is reported to have shown Catherine
the throne of France occupied by Henry IV. This was shortly before
the accident that befell Henry II., whose death the astrologer was
supposed to have prophesied, in a barbarous quatrain.[193] Almanacs
and prognostications of the future were forbidden to be published as
“against the express command of God,” unless they had received the
imprimatur of the bishop or archbishop, who thus enjoyed a monopoly
of fortune-telling.[194] Strange visions appeared; the Wandering Jew
was seen in many places, a tall man with long white hair floating over
his shoulders and walking barefoot. Signs were visible in the heavens:
fiery swords flashed across the midnight sky, and rivers flowed back
toward their sources. Diabolical possession was common, men and women
were turned into wolves, and prowled about the cemeteries. The witches
held their sabbaths undisturbed by the thunders of a Church which
took no steps to remove the general ignorance. It has always been the
policy of Rome to keep men ignorant, that she may keep them slaves. The
sorcerers whom the Senate of Toulouse held to trial in 1577 were alone
more numerous than all other classes of criminals for two years before.
More than 400 were condemned to perish by fire, and, most surprising!
nearly all of them bore the mark of the devil on their person.[195]
Gregory does not tell us whether they were all executed; but it is easy
to conclude that people, accustomed to such sentences and such judicial
massacres, could not have felt much sympathy toward a few wretched
heretics burned or hanged for reviling the _Bon Dieu_.
A blundering sort of justice was meted out to criminals in those days,
it being quite as probable that an innocent man would suffer as that
the guilty would be convicted. But some one was punished, an example
was made, and the law was satisfied. Occasionally special commissions
were issued to try such powerful criminals as defied the ordinary
courts of justice. The “grands jours,” or special assize of Poitou, was
held under a guard of four hundred men, and lasted all the months of
September and October. Twelve persons were beheaded for their crimes,
one heretic was burned, and the houses of some gentlemen who had
refused to appear were burned down.
Many of the punishments were grossly trivial and indecent, others were
barbarously severe. All England rings with execrations if the agony of
a convicted murderer is unnecessarily prolonged by the bungling of the
hangman; but in the sixteenth century offenses were sometimes punished
with a refined ferocity worthy of the kingdom of Dahomey. No code was
mild three hundred years ago, but practices survived in France which
the more merciful instincts of our law had banished from England.
Traitors were scourged, their ears were cut off, and their tongues
pierced with a red-hot iron, after which they were hanged or torn in
pieces by horses. Highway robbers were condemned by a special edict
(1534), to have their arms broken in two places, as well as their ribs,
legs, and thighs;[196] they were then to be extended face uppermost
on a wheel elevated on a tall pole, and “there they should remain to
repent so long as our Lord should please to let them linger.” “If the
criminals are favored,” says an English traveler, “their breast is
first broken. That blow is called the _blow of mercy_, because it
doth quickly bereave them of their life.”[197] Kindness to the weak,
tenderness and commiseration even for the criminal are the slow growth
of civilizing influences.[198] The pen almost refuses to describe
how some women--Huguenot women--were on one occasion buried alive.
They were placed, each in a box or coffin without a top but with bars
across, after which they were lowered into a deep trench and the earth
was thrown upon them. The executioner was a master (maître) in those
days, and represented rather the sheriff than the Calcraft of 1867. He
was a salaried officer of justice, not very far below the judge in
rank. The office was frequently hereditary, and its emoluments great.
At Carcassonne in 1538, his gloves for one execution cost at one time
twelve deniers, and twenty at another. He was paid five sols for the
tumbrel or hurdle on which the criminal was dragged to the place of
execution; ten for hanging him, twenty for beheading him, and five for
the pole on which the head was exhibited. For flogging a culprit round
the town he received seven sols six deniers. For burning a heretic at
Toulouse, the wood, straw, chain, turpentine, brimstone, etc., cost
five livres six sols, with an additional couple of livres if the victim
was burned alive.
The savage punishments of the age tended to brutalize the manners of
the people, one evil thus fostering and reacting upon another. In the
small town of Provins, now so famous for its roses, there lived one
Crispin, who was accused of robbery and murder, tried, convicted, and
sentenced to be hanged. As he passed for a Huguenot, the priests, up to
the last moment, urged him to recant; but he remained firm--“_si ne
sçavoit pas bien lire ni écrire_.” In due course he was executed,
and the dead body left hanging on the gallows. A crowd of a hundred
boys or more, and none over twelve years old, gathered round the spot;
some of the more daring mounted the ladder, cut the rope and let the
corpse fall. A cord was now fastened round the neck, another round the
ankles, and the boys began to pull in different directions for the
mastery. As the sides were pretty evenly matched, a truce was agreed
upon, during which they got up a mock trial on the question, in what
manner a Huguenot ought to be dragged to the voirie or dunghill. The
juvenile court decided that “the said heretic should be dragged by the
heels like a dead beast,” and were actually pulling the body to the
Changy gate, when another gang of boys met them and insisted that the
body should be burned. A fire was kindled into which the corpse was
thrown, while a crowd of spectators looked on encouraging the boys by
words and gestures. After the body had lain some time in the flames,
it was again dragged out and thrown into the river, where a bargeman
cut off an ear and wore it as a trophy in his hat.[199] Comment upon
such an incident would be superfluous. It is a picture painted by a
contemporary of a state of society that had not existed in Europe since
the fall of Rome. The men of Provins who looked on approvingly while
the boys were making a plaything of Crispin’s lifeless body, were the
fathers of those who committed the atrocities of the Reign of Terror.
Under the Valois dynasty, the towns and cities of France were very much
as they had been through the long period of the Middle Ages. During the
last fifty years, the spirit of change and improvement has spread so
rapidly, that, except in the remoter parts of the country, the traces
of the old towns have almost disappeared. The towns were surrounded
with high walls, such as may still be seen confining the Haute Ville of
Boulogne-sur-Mer, or parts of York, Chester, and Norwich. The streets
were narrow and winding, the houses tall, the successive stories
sometimes projecting over each other, so as almost to exclude the sun.
With the exception of the mansions of the nobles, and sometimes of the
wealthier traders, the houses were built of wood--often straw-thatched,
and with windows formed alike to exclude air and light. This was one
cause of the frequent pestilences which ravaged Europe, and of the low
average of human life. The mansions of the nobles and gentry still
retained a semi-fortified aspect. They were entered by huge gate-ways,
and few windows looked into the street. The shops of the traders
resembled greatly the modern greengrocers’ or butchers’, in being
without glazed windows, and open to the street as soon as the shutter
was let down. Sometimes they were connected by a sort of arcade, still
traceable in the _Piliers des Halles_, where the name remains
while the thing has disappeared. These middle-class dwellings were
often covered externally with slates, or the intervals between the
timbers were filled up with bricks arranged in fantastic patterns. The
external wood-work was often as exquisitely carved as the internal. A
spacious staircase with massive balustrades occupied a disproportionate
share of the house. The roof was so arranged as to show a gable to the
street, and it often projected so far as to permit a small gallery to
be built out of the top story, where the inmates might enjoy the fresh
air under shelter.
There were no facilities for pedestrians: the roadways were unpaved
(except in a few rare instances), and no smooth _trottoir_ invited
the curious or the idle to stroll and gaze at the shops. In wet weather
the streets were impassable from mud, in hot and dry weather they were
almost as troublesome from the dust and stench; for the road was the
general receptacle of the rubbish of the houses, and the scavenger’s
trade was in embryo. Drainage was unknown, and even in Paris there was
only one sewer, namely that constructed by Aubriot in the reign of
Charles V.
Churches and convents were numerous in every city and town, not
unfrequently occupying one-half of their area. At Rouen there were
forty convents and thirty-six parish churches, without reckoning the
collegiate churches and the cathedral. Each city and town had its
governor, who lived in the citadel or castle, which was generally so
detached as to be secure when the town had fallen into the hands of
the enemy. The well-known town of Boulogne-sur-Mer presents us with an
easily accessible example of this arrangement.
In the middle of the sixteenth century the population of Paris was
between four and five hundred thousand.[200] The walls were seven
leagues in circuit, according to Corrozet; while Giustiniani (1535)
says that a man could make the circuit in three hours’ easy walking,
which is nearer Coryat’s calculation (1608) of ten miles.[201] It was
surrounded by stone walls flanked by towers, and pierced by eleven
gates, five on the south side and six on the north. The bulwark
enclosing the northern part of the city started from the arsenal on the
river, ran along the boulevards of the Bastille, St. Antoine, Temple,
St. Martin, and St. Denis to the Place des Victoires, the Palais Royal,
and the Louvre. On the south, it ran from the Pont de la Tournelle,
behind the gardens of the college of Henry IV., across the streets
of St. Jacques and Mazarin to the river at the Pont des Arts.[202]
Houses even now were found in clusters beyond the Porte St. Honoré, on
each side of the road as far as the present Barriers of Roule and of
Chaillot. The Faubourg Montmartre was without the walls, along the line
of the Chaussée d’Antin, and beyond the Temple the Faubourg St. Antoine
was fast growing in size. Giovanni Capello writing in 1554 describes
Paris as the largest city he had ever seen, and Coryat declares it to
be well called “_Lutetia_ (from _lutum_, mud), for many of
the streets are the dirtiest and the stinkingest of all he ever saw.”
It contained from three to four hundred houses of the yearly value of
6000 livres, two hundred of 10,000, one hundred of 30,000, and twenty
at least of 50,000.[203] Every Wednesday and Saturday 2000 horses
entered the city laden solely with poultry and game, all of which was
sold in two hours.
The streets were dark, narrow, and winding, with a gutter running
down the middle. In that part called the Cité the houses were tall
and black, grim as prisons, and swarming with a squalid famishing
population. Many of the streets were little wider than the curious rows
or alleys in Yarmouth in which you can hardly turn a wheelbarrow. No
lamps shed even a feeble light to guide the belated citizen. The tapers
in the shrines at the street corners alone helped to direct his steps,
if he chanced to be abroad without torch or lantern. It need hardly
be said that the streets were very insecure, and acts of violence
frequent. At intervals during the night, the watch, a company of armed
men, went their round, but the noise they made and the torches they
carried, were a warning to the evildoer to make his escape.
The clear waters of the Seine cut the city into two parts. The stately
quays that now line its banks scarcely existed in the reign of Charles
IX. The gardens of private citizens extended in many places down to
the water’s edge. The river flowed beneath five bridges--one of which
(the Millers’ or the Birds’ bridge) was for foot passengers only. It
joined what is now the Quai de la Mégisserie to the Quai de l’Horloge,
and was swept away, both houses and inhabitants, by the flood of 1596.
Thirty-four houses stood on each side of the bridge of Notre Dame, and
the street thus formed was the favorite promenade of the Parisians. The
road was so wide that three carriages could pass abreast, and the rents
were higher than in any other part of the city. Among the attractions
of this street, Gilles Corrozet does not forget to mention the charming
women who served in the shops.[204]
The modern traveler now seeks in vain for the ten islands which once
interrupted the navigation of the Seine. That of Louviers, where
Charles IX. used to bathe, and where he was once entertained with a
naval fight, was united to the Quai Morland in 1847. The islands of
Notre Dame and Vaches, composing the Isle of St. Louis, were once
separated by a narrow ditch, which is now the Rue Poulletier. The
Jews’ Island, where Jacques Molay was beheaded, was united to the Cité
by Henry IV., and formed the Place Dauphine and the spur of the Pont
Neuf, upon which the statue of the first Bourbon king still stands.
The island of the Louvre, never little better than a mere sand bank,
has been dredged away. The others have disappeared in the course of
improving the navigation of the river, and, La Cité alone remains.
This old quarter of Paris, the hot-bed of sedition, disease, and crime,
has been so entirely metamorphosed by the hand of improvement, that
travelers who knew it thirty years ago recognize it with difficulty.
Even at this time Paris was noted for its _orfévrerie_, its works
in gold and silver being much sought after. The Rue St. Denis was the
principal street; its shops and warehouses were famous all over Europe.
Along that street kings and queens used to make their solemn entrance
into the capital, when the merchants spent their money like water to
decorate their houses in welcome of their sovereign. Between it and
the Rue aux Fers was the Church of the Innocents, round which lay the
famous cemetery, enclosed with dank and sombre arcades, filled with
shops and stalls. They were the favorite resort of lawyers, and the
rendezvous of fashion and intrigue, as the Cathedral of St. Paul’s was
to the English court or city gallants in the reign of the Stuarts.
The Rue Jacob (St. Jacques) was like Paternoster Row, full of shops
plentifully furnished with books--diversos libros diversis artibus
aptos.
The chief royal residence was the Louvre. The palace of the
Tournelles--the Place Royale now occupies its site--was deserted after
the accident to Henry II. The brick-fields which gave their name to the
new palace of the Tuileries had disappeared in the previous century;
and Catherine, having purchased the Marquis of Villeroy’s hotel with
the adjoining property, gave Philibert Delorme instructions to commence
that striking monument of her architectural taste.
A Venetian embassador reckons that there were at this time one hundred
and thirty-two cities in France; but as he gives no definition of the
term “city,” his calculation is of little service. He probably meant
walled towns, to distinguish them from such as were unfortified. The
approaches to the cities were not then marked by airy suburbs and
scattered villas; but the cultivated country or forest ran close up
to the walls. One ornamental erection alone serves to mark the great
change that has taken place. Coryat has frequent occasion to describe
the “fair gallows of stone,” which adorned the entrance to every town.
Most of them remained until they were swept away by the Revolution.
The principal cities of France, after Paris, were Lyons, Orleans,
Rouen, Bordeaux, and Dieppe. A paved causeway led from the capital to
each of these places. Orleans was so large and beautiful that Charles
V. called it the finest in France. It was populous and well-built, and
its university contained 1600 students, “all men and not boys, as in
the other seats of education.”
Rouen, sometimes called the second city in the kingdom, carried on a
large trade, but it had not yet become the “Manchester” of France. It
had four yearly fairs, and its quays were crowded with ships, sometimes
as many as two hundred “small vessels” being there at the same
time.[205] Then, as now, the poorer people drank no wine but “bira di
pere e poma.” When Henry II. and Catherine visited Rouen in 1550, the
citizens welcomed them with a remarkable ballet or masque. The banks
of the Seine were transformed so as to present a picture of Brazilian
life. There is an old wood-cut representing the curious scene. A
meadow, sloping down to the river, is planted with trees, colored and
trimmed so as to resemble those of South American forests. Parroquets
and other gaily-colored birds are flying about them, and apes and
monkeys clambering among the branches. The natives are represented by
three hundred mariners of Rouen, Dieppe, and Havre, who, unencumbered
with the slightest clothing, are hunting, dancing, and fighting with as
much animation as the fifty “real savages just arrived from America.”
Offensive as the exhibition would be to our tastes, it was otherwise in
the sixteenth century. The queen was delighted “aux jolys esbatements
et schyomachie des sauvages.”[206] A somewhat similar but less undraped
scene was represented before Charles IX. when he visited Bordeaux in
April, 1565. Representatives--most of them stage representatives--of
twelve nations defiled before him, among them being some real
“Canarians, savages, Americans, Brazilians, and Taprobanians,” each
speaking in his native tongue. A picture was painted to perpetuate the
memory of the scene.[207] Bordeaux was a wealthy city, its foreign
trade extensive, its population so numerous that it could furnish
10,000 fighting men, and its parliament ranked next after Paris and
Toulouse.
In 1560, Dieppe possessed a mercantile marine equal to that of all
the rest of France. The population of the city amounted to 60,000,
now it is about 20,000. The ship-owners of this “northern Rochelle”
may compare with the Medicis. When John Ango entertained Francis I.
at his chateau of Varengeville (now an undistinguishable heap of
ruins), he received the king with a magnificence unusual even in those
magnificent times. The rooms were decorated with costly hangings,
curious furniture, Italian sculpture, and precious vases. Ango lent
money and ships to the court, and often had as many as twenty armed
vessels afloat, with which he ventured to measure strength with the
King of Portugal. When the government of the Low Countries seized all
the French ships in Flemish waters, Henry II. ordered Coligny to equip
a fleet instantly and take summary vengeance. But the ports were empty,
and there were no ships. “It is only the people of Dieppe,” said the
admiral, “who can supply your majesty with a fleet.” The citizens,
proud of the honor, offered to pay half the expense, and fitted out
nineteen vessels of one hundred and twenty tons each. Ships of Caen
went to Africa and the New World, bringing back so much more gold than
could be exchanged, that the king permitted the merchants to have a
mint of their own.
Lyons, owing to its fairs, possessed a stronger foreign element among
its inhabitants than any other town in France. In 1575 Lippomano called
it “one of the most celebrated cities;” and there was a proverb that
“Lyons supported the crown by its taxes, and Paris by its presents.”
The revenue contributed by the former city alone was so great, that
when there was a talk of suspending the fairs, it was calculated
that the change would involve a loss of ten millions of gold yearly.
The immense business led to the appointment of special tribunals for
the fairs, and a sort of clearing-house for bills of exchange. The
principal merchants and bankers were Italians: Capponi, Gondi, Spini,
Deodati. Lorenzo Capponi, one of the most munificent of his class,
kept open house during each fair, and entertained more than 4000
persons. After the introduction of silk-growing, Lyons received a
great development. The first mulberry-tree planted in the 16th century
at Alais, about a league from Montelimart, was still alive in 1802.
In this century all Europe was supplied with books from the presses
of Lyons--no city, Venice perhaps excepted, circulating more. The
names of Gryphæus and Dolet, Tournes and Roville, are familiar to all
book-collectors. In the house of Henry Stephens (Etienne) every body
spoke Latin from garret to cellar. The old city occupied the space
between the Cours Napoleon and a line drawn from the Pont Morand to the
Pont de la Feuillée, the Church of St. Nizier being about the middle.
There were only two bridges--one over each river; and a small suburb
on the right bank of the Saone, clustering round the cathedral and the
Church of St. Lawrence. The superior comfort of the inhabitants may be
estimated from the report of a traveler, who mentions as a circumstance
worthy of note, that “most of their windows were made of white paper;”
although in some of the better houses the upper part of the window was
filled with glass.
The smaller towns of France have all undergone a change more or less
great: even those in the agricultural districts have outgrown their
walls. At Boulogne-sur-Mer the lower town consisted of two or three
convents and a few fishermen’s huts clustered round the Church of St.
Nicholas. A populous suburb now covers the site of the old harbor.
Dijon, now a mere provincial town, was once a great parliament centre:
a little capital in Eastern France.[208] It had a vast ducal palace;
churches and abbeys were crowded close together. Of the palace of Jean
sans Peur, the fire has spared little beyond a tall tower and some
precious fragments. Modern improvements and renovations have destroyed
much of the old city; but that gem of the Renaissance La Maison
Milsand, in the Rue des Forges, still remains as an unapproachable
model of architectural decoration.
The charming little town of Moulins in the Bourbonnais filled the
space now enclosed by the inner promenade--the Cours Doujar, d’Aquin,
and Berulle--constructed on the ditches of the old wall. None of the
“curious birds and beasts” remain in the park; and of the magnificent
chateau where Charles IX. held his court little has survived beyond the
huge unbattlemented tower; and of the steeples for which the town was
once so famous, only one (the clock-tower) still soars above the houses.
The greatest change of all has taken place in the district that lies
around the great manufacturing town of St. Étienne. In 1560 it was a
pleasant wooded valley; no clanging engines disturbed its silence,
no clouds of smoke defiled the air. Now it is one of the busiest
centres of modern industry, and in noise and dirt may almost vie with
Birmingham.
Toulon, now the great arsenal of the French navy, was a small port
containing only 637 houses, and covering an area of 660 acres. Its
whole artillery consisted of two bombardes and twenty-five pounds of
powder. Its naval importance dates from the reign of Henry IV. In 1543,
when Barbarossa’s fleet was received into the harbor, the inhabitants
were ordered to abandon the town for six months under pain of death,
leaving their houses and all they could not remove at the mercy of the
Turks.[209]
From this imperfect sketch of the condition of France at the
outbreak of the Religious Wars, the reader may in some degree be
able to understand how such a crime as the St. Bartholomew massacre
was possible. Although right and wrong are always the same, our
appreciation of them depends in the main upon our education and the
circumstances around us; and it would be unfair to judge the men of the
sixteenth century by our nineteenth century standard.