[Footnote 700: Vieilleville, ii. 401-404; De Thou, ii. 667; Forbes, State Papers, i. 127.]

[Footnote 701: Mem. de Vieilleville, ii. 405. The date of Henry's visit to parliament is not free from the same contradictory statements that affect many of the most important events of history. De Thou, and, following him, Felibien, Browning, and others, place it five days later than I have done in the text. La Place, the anonymous "Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II." (in the Recueil des choses memorables, published in 1565, and later in the Memoires de Conde), Castelnau, the Histoire eccles., etc., are our best authorities. As Sir Nicholas Throkmorton gave an account of the Mercuriale in his despatch to the queen of June 13th (Forbes, State Papers, i. 126-130), I am surprised that Dr. White, who refers, to this interesting paper (although by an oversight ascribing it to June 19th) should, while correcting M. de Felice's error, have preferred the date of June 15th. "Massacre of St. Bartholomew," Am. ed., p. 51.]

[Footnote 702: Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. (Recueil des choses memorables, 1565.) Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, ii. 434-437. Cf. also the maps accompanying that work.]

[Footnote 703: The Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. add that Henry demanded the reason of the Parliament's delay to register an edict they had received from him against the "Lutherans"—doubtless the last—establishing the inquisitorial commission of three cardinals. "Cest edict estoit sorti de l'oracle dudict cardinal de Lorreine." Baum, Theodore Beza, ii. 31, note, etc., has already called attention to the gross inaccuracies of Browning, in his description of the incidents of the Mercuriale, as well as of the king's visit to parliament. (Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 54, etc.). Among other assertions altogether unwarranted by the evidence, he states that Henry, in order to entrap the unwary, "declared himself free from every kind of angry feeling against those counsellors who had adopted the new religion, and begged them all to speak their opinions freely," etc. (p. 55). If true, this would rob Du Bourg's course of half its heroism.]

[Footnote 704: "Whereas," wrote Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, "the Kinge's presence is very rare, and hathe seldome happened but upon somme great occasion; so I endevored myself (as much as I could) to learne the cause of their assemble." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.]

[Footnote 705: Strangely enough, Mr. Smedley, History of the Reformed Religion in France, i. 87, note, following a careless annotator of De Thou, discovers an inaccuracy in the allusion where no inaccuracy exists. It was not to Ahab's question, but to Elijah's retort, that Du Faur made reference. See La Place, p. 13.]

[Footnote 706: La Place, Comm. de l'estat, etc., p. 13; Hist. eccles., i. 122; (Crespin, Gal. chret., ii. 303); De Thou, ii. 670. Felibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1066.]

[Footnote 707: La Place, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 708: Among them Paul de Foix, "who is cousin to the King of Navarre." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1559, Forbes i. 126.]

[Footnote 709: La Place, Com. de l'estat, etc., p. 14; Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II.; De Thou, ii. 671; Felibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1067; Vieilleville, ii. 405-406; Hist. eccles. i., 122-123. Even Anne de Montmorency was struck with Du Bourg's boldness, and exclaimed, "Vous faictes la bravade." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.]

[Footnote 710: The date is variously given as the 25th or 26th of May. The latter, adopted by the Histoire ecclesiastique, is probably correct. See Triqueti, Premiers jours du protestantisme en France (Paris, 1859), 253, 254.]

[Footnote 711: "Confession de Foy faite d'un commun accord par les Francoys, qui desirent vivre selon la purite de l'Evangile," etc. In the Recueil des choses memorables (1565) this document is published with the preface and the supplicatory letter addressed to the king (Francis II.) after the "Tumulte d'Amboise."]

[Footnote 712: The proceedings of the first French National Synod are best given in Aymon, Tous les synodes nationaux des eglises ref. de France (La Haye, 1710), i. 1-12; Hist. univ. du sieur d'Aubigne, liv. ii., c. iii., t. i., pp. 56-64. They are faithfully, although not always literally, translated in Quick's Synodicon in Gallia Reformata (London, 1692), i., viii.-xv., 2-7. See also Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 108-121; La Place, Com. de l'estat de la religion, et republique soubs les roys Henry et Francois Seconds, etc., 14-16.]

[Footnote 713: See the history of the Hotel des Tournelles and the plan of Paris in the reign of Francis I., in Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, iii. 355-357, and Atlas.]

[Footnote 714: "Duquel lieu tous les prisonniers de leans pouvoyent ouir les clairons, hault-bois et trompettes dudict tournoy." Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., Recueil des choses memorables, p. 5; Memoires de Conde, i. 216.]

[Footnote 715: Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 716: "I am credibly enformed, that the Frenche King, after the perfection of the ceremonies toching his doughter and King Philip, and his suster to the Duke of Savoy, myndeth himself to make a journey to the countreis of Poictou, Gascoigne, Guyon, and other places, for the repressing of religion; and to use th' extremest persecution he may against the protestants in his countreys, and the like in Scotlande; and that with celerite, ymediatly after the finishing of the same ceremonies." Throkmorton to Cecil, May 23, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 101.]

[Footnote 717: "Paix blasmable, dont les flambeaux de joye furent les torches funebres du roy Henry II." Mem. de Tavannes, ii. 242.]

[Footnote 718: "The last of this present." Throkmorton to Council, June 30 and July 1, 1559. Forbes, State Papers, i. 151. So in a subsequent letter, relating a message to him from the constable on July 1st, he speaks of "the mischaunce happened the daie before to the king." Ibid., i. 154.]

[Footnote 719: Hist. eccles., i. 123, 124. Catharine de' Medici's dream, in which the Huguenots saw a parallel to that of Pilate's wife, was not a fabrication of theirs. According to her daughter Margaret, Catharine had many such visions on the eve of important events. "Mesme la nuict devant la miserable course de lice, elle songea comme elle voyoit le feu Roy mon pere blesse a l'oeil, comme il fust; et estant esveillee, elle le supplia plusieurs fois de ne vouloir point courir ce jour, et vouloir se contenter de voir le plaisir du tournoi, sans en vouloir estre. Mais l'inevitable destin ne permit tant de bien a ce royaume, qu'il put recevoir cet utile conseil." Memoires de Marguerite de Valois (edition of French Hist. Soc.), 42.]

[Footnote 720: Pierre de Lestoile, 14.]

[Footnote 721: Lettere di Principi, iii. 196, apud Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, Am. tr., p. 167. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, who alone of the diplomatic corps was an eye-witness, thus describes the scene in a letter written the same evening: "Wherat it happened, that the King, after he had ronne a good many courses very well and faire, meeting with yong Monsieur de Lorges, capitaine of the scottishe garde, received at the said de Lorge his hands such a counterbuff, as, the blow first lighting upon the King's head, and taking away the pannage which was fastened to his hedpece with yron, he dyd break his staff withall; and so with the rest of the staff hitting the King upon the face gave him such a counterbuff, as he drove a splinte right over his eye on his right side: the force of which stroke was so vehement, and the paine he had withall so great, as he was moch astonished, and had great ado (with reling to and from) to kepe himself on horseback; and his horse in like manner dyd somwhat yeld. Wherupon with all expedition he was unarmed in the field, even against the place where I stode.... I noted him to be very weake, and to have the sens of all his lymmes almost benommed; for being caryed away, as he lay along, nothing covered but his face, he moved nether hand nor fote, but laye as one amased." Letter to the Council, June 30 and July 1, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 151.]

[Footnote 722: Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., in fine. Recueil des choses memorables, and Mem. de Conde, i. 216.]

[Footnote 723: Hist. eccles., i. 123, 124. The singular coincidence is no invention of the Protestants. It is confirmed by a contemporary pamphlet by the "king-at-arms of Dauphiny" (Paris, 1559), Le Trespas et Ordre des Obseques, ... de feu de tresheureuse memoire le Roy Henry deuxieme, etc., which says: "La dicte salle, ensemble lesdicts theatres, estoient tendus tout autour d'une tapisserie d'or et de soie a grandes figures, des actes des apostres." (Reprint of Cimber et Danjou, iii. 317.)]

[Footnote 724: De Thou, ii. 674. Yet Francis II., in the preamble to the commission as lieutenant-general given to Guise, March 17, 1560, seems incidentally to vouch for the contrary: "Voire de telle sorte que nostredit seigneur et pere, a son decez, ne nous auroit rien tant recommande, que d'user a nosdits subjets de toutes gracieusetez," etc. Recueil de choses mem., 20. Card. Santa Croce speaks of him as "ita ex vulnere concussus, ut primo die sensum fere omnem amiserit." De civilibus Galliae dissentionibus commentaria (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Collectio), v. 1438, 1439.]

[Footnote 725: Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., Recueil des choses mem., in initio, and Mem. de Conde, i. 213-216; La Planche, 202; La Place, Commentaires, etc., 20; J. de Serres, De statu rel., etc. (1570), i., fol. 18; Hist. eccles., i. 123; De Thou, ii. 674; Davila (Cottrell's tr.), p. 11; Santa Croce, v. 1438, etc. It is characteristic that so important a date as that of the fatal tournament should be differently stated; La Place, the Hist. eccles., and De Thou making it June 29th. The confusion is increased by subsequent writers. Motley (Rise of the Dutch Republic, i. 204) making Henry die on the 10th of July of the wound inflicted eleven days before, and Prescott (Philip the Second, i. 295) representing him as lingering ten days and dying on the ninth of July.]

[Footnote 726: Professor Baum published the "Maniere et Fasson," on the occasion of the Tercentenary of the French Reformed Church, in 1859, in an elegantly printed pamphlet, itself a fac-simile of the original in all respects, except the use of Roman in place of Gothic letters. This pamphlet in turn is out of print, and it is to Professor Baum's kindness that I am indebted for the copy of which I have made use.]

[Footnote 727: Printed with marginal notes giving all modifications in other early editions in Joh. Calvini Opera (Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss), 1867, v. 164-223—a work which is the result of almost incredible labor and research. In February, 1868, the distinguished senior editor wrote to me: "Nous avons deja maintenant copie de notre main et collationne a Neufchatel, a Geneve et autres endroits, quelque chose comme six mille pieces, lettres et consilia et autres calviniana."]

[Footnote 728: The beautiful petitions for "all our poor brethren who are dispersed under the tyranny of Antichrist," and for prisoners and those persecuted by the enemies of the Gospel, were not in the original edition, but appear in that of 1558. Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz and Reuss, vi. 177, note.]



CHAPTER IX.

FRANCIS THE SECOND AND THE TUMULT OF AMBOISE.

[Sidenote: The victims breathe more freely.]

[Sidenote: Epigrams on the death of Henry.]

The plans carefully matured by Henry for the suppression of the reformed doctrines were disarranged by his sudden death. The expected victims of the Spanish Inquisition, which he was to have established in France, breathed more freely. It was not wonderful that the "Calvinists," according to an unfriendly historian, preached of the late monarch's fate as miraculous, and magnified it to their advantage;[729] for they saw in it an interposition of the Almighty in their behalf, as signal as any illustrating the Jewish annals. Epigrams of no little merit were composed on the event, and were widely circulated. One likened the lance of Montgomery to the stone from David's sling, which became "the unexpected salvation of the saints."[730] In another, Henry is the soldier who pierces the Crucified through the side of those whom He styles His members; but the impious weapon—such is Heaven's avenging decree—shall be stained with the murderer's own blood.[731] These verses, and others like them, obtaining great currency, offended the ears of the late king's favorites and of the devoted adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, who ceased not for years to pour forth lamentations over the untimely death of Henry the Second, and the ill-starred peace with which it was so closely connected.[732]

[Sidenote: The young king.]

From the hands of a monarch in the prime of life, the sceptre had passed into those of a stripling of sixteen, who was unfortunately endowed neither with his grandfather's intellect nor with his father's vigor of body; but who inherited the enfeebled mental and physical constitution which was, perhaps, the result of the excesses of both. Although married to the beautiful Queen of Scots, some time before his father's reign came to its tragic conclusion, Francis the Second exhibited few of the instincts of a man and of a king, and showed himself to be even more of a minor in intelligence than in years. Content to leave the cares of government to his favorites, he sought only for repose and pleasure. Yet in this, as has been the case in more than one other instance, the most turbulent lot fell to him who would gladly have chosen quiet and sloth.

[Sidenote: Fall of the constable's power.]

With Henry's last breath, the supremacy of Constable Montmorency in the councils of state came to an end. In view of the minority of the successor to the throne, two measures were dictated by the customs of the realm—the appointment of the nearest prince of royal blood as regent, and the immediate convocation of the States General to confirm the selection, and to assign to the regent a competent council of state.[733] Unfortunately for the interests of France during the succeeding half-century, there were powerful personages interested in opposing this most natural and just arrangement, and there were specious excuses behind which their ambitious designs might shelter themselves. The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise, with the queen mother, maintained that Francis was in all respects competent to rule; that he had already passed the age at which previous kings had assumed the reins of government; that the laws had prescribed the time from which the majority of subjects, not of the monarch, should be reckoned;[734] that, if too young himself to bear the entire burden of the administration, he could delegate his authority to those of his own kin in whom he reposed implicit confidence. There was, therefore, no necessity for establishing a regency, still less for assembling the States General—an impolitic step even in the most quiet times, but fraught with special peril when grave dissensions threaten the kingdom.

[Sidenote: Catharine de' Medici assumes an important part.]

With the advent of her eldest son to the throne, Catharine de' Medici first assumed a prominent position, although not an all-controlling influence at court. During the reign of Francis the First she had enjoyed little consideration. Her marriage with Henry, in 1533, had given, as we have seen, little satisfaction to the people, who believed that her kinsman, Pope Clement the Seventh, had deceived the king; and Francis himself, disappointed in his ambitious designs by the pontiff's speedy death, looked upon her with little favor. For several years she had borne no children, and Henry was urged to put her away on the ground of barrenness. Nor was she more happy when her prayers had been answered, and a family of four sons and three daughters blessed her marriage. Her husband's infatuation respecting Diana of Poitiers embittered her life when dauphiness, and compelled her as queen to tolerate the presence of the king's mistress, and pay her an insincere respect. Excluded from all participation in the control of affairs, she fawned upon power where her ambitious nature would have sought to rule. Concealing her chagrin beneath an exterior of contentment, she exhibited, if we may believe the Venetian Soranzo, such benignity of disposition, especially to her own countrymen, that it would be impossible to convey an idea of the love entertained for her both by the court and by the entire kingdom.[735]

[Sidenote: Her timidity and dissimulation.]

[Sidenote: She dismisses Diana of Poitiers.]

Hypocrisy is the vice of timid natures. Such, we have the authority of a contemporary, and one who knew her well, for stating the nature of Catharine was.[736] In her, however, dissimulation was a well-known family trait, which she possessed in common with her kinsman, Pope Leo the Tenth, and all her house.[737] And it must be admitted that the idiosyncrasy had had a fair chance to develop during the five-and-twenty years she had spent in France, threatened with repudiation, contemned as an Italian upstart, suffering the gravest insult at the hands of her husband, but forced to dissemble, and to hide the pain his neglect gave her from the eyes of the curious world. Nor was her position altogether an easy one even now. It is true that her womanly revenge was gratified by the instant dismissal of the Duchess of Valentinois, who, if she retained the greater part of her ill-gotten wealth, owed it to the joint influence of Lorraine and Guise, whose younger brother, the Duke of Aumale, had married Diana's daughter.[738] But her ambitious plan, while securing the authority of her children, to rule herself, was likely to be frustrated by the pretensions of the two families of Montmoreney and Guise, raised by the late monarch to inordinate power in the state, and by the claim to the regency which Antoine of Bourbon-Vendome, King of Navarre, might justly assert. To establish herself in opposition to all these, her sagacity taught her was impossible. To prevail by allying herself to the most powerful and those from whom she could extort the best terms seemed to be the most politic course. Her choice was quickly made. It was unfortunate for France that her prudence partook more of the character of low cunning than of true wisdom, and that, in seeking a temporary ascendancy, she neglected the true interests of her own children and of the kingdom they inherited.

[Sidenote: Her alliance with the Guises.]

In order to prevent the convocation of the States and the appointment of the King of Navarre as regent, but one course appeared to be open to Catharine: she must throw herself into the arms of the Guises. Only thus could she become free from the odious dictation of the constable, under which she had groaned during her husband's reign. The Guises had had a narrow escape, it was said; for Henry the Second, having tardily discovered the insatiable ambition of the Lorraine family, had definitely made up his mind to banish them from court.[739] Now availing themselves of the great influence of their niece, Mary Stuart, over her royal husband, the duke and the cardinal prepared, by a bold stroke, to become masters of the administration, and made to Catharine such liberal offers of power that she readily acquiesced in their plans.

Of their formidable rivals, the King of Navarre was at a distance, in the south. The constable alone was dangerously near. But an immemorial custom furnished a convenient excuse for setting him aside. The body of the deceased monarch must lie in state for the forty days previous to its interment, under protection of a guard of honor selected from among his most trusty servants. Upon Montmorency, as grand master of the palace, devolved the chief care of his late Majesty's remains.[740] Delighted to have their principal rival so well occupied, the cardinal and the duke hastened from the Tournelles to secure the person of the living monarch.

[Sidenote: The Guises make themselves masters of the king.]

When the delegates of the parliaments of France came, a few days later, to congratulate Francis on his accession, and inquired to whom they should henceforth address themselves, the programme was already fully arranged. The king had been well drilled in his little speech. He had, he said, committed the direction of the state to the hands of his two uncles, and desired the same obedience to be shown to them as to himself.[741]

[Sidenote: The court fool's sensible remark.]

The Cardinal of Lorraine was intrusted with the civil administration and the finances. His brother became head of the department of war, without the title, but with the full powers, of constable.[742] Of royalty little was left Francis but the empty name.[743] There was sober truth lurking beneath the saucy remark of Brisquet, the court fool, who told Francis that in the time of his Majesty's father he used to put up at the "Crescent," but at present he lodged at the "Three Kings!"[744]

[Sidenote: Montmorency retires to his own estates,]

Montmorency did, indeed, attempt resistance to the assumption of absolute authority which the Guises thus appropriated rather than received from the young monarch. But he was equally unsuccessful in influencing Francis and the queen mother. The former, when the constable waited upon him in the Louvre, according to one story, scarcely deigned to look at him;[745] but, according to a more trustworthy account, received him with a show of cordiality, and assured him that he would maintain his sons and his nephews, the Chatillons, in the dignities they had attained under previous kings; at the same time, however, adding that, in compassion for the constable's age and long services, he had determined to relieve him of his onerous charges, and to give him full liberty to retire to his estates and obtain needful rest and diversion! Montmorency was too much of a courtier to be taken unawares, and promptly replied that he had come expressly to beg as a favor what the king so graciously offered him.[746] Catharine, to whom he next paid his respects, was less friendly, and, indeed, told him bluntly that, if she were to do her duty, he would lose his head for his insolence to her and her children.[747] Meantime Montmorency had fared no better in his negotiations with Antoine of Bourbon-Vendome. The latter had not forgotten the little account made in the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis of his wife's claim upon Spanish Navarre, and was indisposed to form a close alliance with the chief negotiator. He preferred, he said, to stand aloof from a movement intended only to ruin "his cousins of Guise."[748]

[Sidenote: where he maintains almost regal magnificence.]

The prudent old warrior, long since accustomed to the most startling vicissitudes, determined to bid adieu for a time to the royal court, and to retire to Chantilly, one of his paternal estates, where, in close proximity to the capital, he was accustomed to maintain an almost regal magnificence.[749] So powerful a nobleman, the representative of a family which, from its antiquity and neighboring greatness, was held in special esteem by the Parisians, among the wealthiest of whom it boasted of having two thousand persons its tenants,[750] could not safely be attacked. Accordingly, Montmorency, after having faithfully performed his duty as grand master, and deposited the remains of Henry in the abbey church of St. Denis, returned home with so numerous and powerful a retinue, that the king's appeared but small in comparison.[751]

[Sidenote: Decided measures of the new favorites.]

The power thus boldly seized by the cardinal and duke was energetically wielded. The partisans of the constable were at once removed from all offices of trust, and devoted adherents of the house of Lorraine were substituted. It was not difficult, if we may believe the historian of this reign, to bring the parliaments into similar subjection. The system of venality introduced by Cardinal Duprat had so corrupted the highest courts of justice that they had lost all traces of their former noble independence. The sons of usurers sat in places which had been occupied by the most distinguished jurisconsults of the kingdom, and so debased the administration of law that, in the eye of a contemporary, parliament had become a den of robbers.[752] Marshal de St. Andre made proposals, which were accepted, to form an offensive and defensive alliance with the Guises, promising to give his only daughter in marriage to a member of that family, and to settle upon her the immense property which he had accumulated during the last reign by extortion and confiscations, retaining for himself only the life interest.[753] In order to rid the court of the princes of the blood, Conde was sent on a mission to Flanders, to confirm the peace, and the Prince of La-Roche-sur-Yon and the Cardinal of Bourbon were deputed to accompany Princess Elizabeth, Philip's bride, to the Spanish frontier.[754]

[Sidenote: Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre.]

[Sidenote: His remissness and pusillanimity.]

[Sidenote: His desire to be indemnified for Navarre.]

Meanwhile the eyes not only of the reformers, who had no more inveterate enemies than the Guises, but also of the friends of order, whatever their creed might be, were anxiously directed to Antoine, King of Navarre. His younger brother, Conde, his cousin, La Roche-sur-Yon, and other great nobles came to meet him at Vendome, and set forth the disastrous consequences not only to them, but to their children and to the entire kingdom, that would certainly follow the base surrender of the government into the hands of foreigners.[755] Earnestly was he reminded of his undeniable claim to the regency, and entreated to dispossess the usurpers. Nor did the weak prince openly disregard the prayers of the ministers and people, who begged him to view his deliverance from so many perils as intended not merely to advance his own personal interests, but to secure the welfare of those whose tenets he had at heart espoused. But, where vigorous and instantaneous action was requisite, he exhibited only supineness and delay. His manly body contained a womanish soul.[756] His intimate counsellors were already in the secret pay of the Guises, and, in return for the large rewards promised,[757] disclosed every movement and plan of their master, while they gave him such advice as was calculated to render all his undertakings abortive.[758] When, after long hesitation, he at length left for St. Germain, he advanced slowly and by short stages, intimidated by the example of the treason of the Constable of Bourbon, in the reign of Francis the First, of the consequences of which the agents of his enemies did not fail frequently to remind him, and apprehensive of the intentions of Philip upon his small principality of Bearn.[759] It is true that at Poitiers, where he was waited upon by a large deputation of ministers from Paris, Orleans, Tours, and other principal cities, and urged, by renouncing the mass and openly espousing the cause of God, to fulfil the expectations of the persecuted faithful, he returned a favorable reply, and declared that, if he still conformed to an idolatry which he abhorred, it was in order not to lose the only means of being serviceable to them. The sturdy men, who admitted no compromises in matters of conscience, and had for years been exposing their bodies to the peril of the flames or gibbet, manfully replied that, if he would find God propitious, he must not endeavor to make his own terms with Him; and that his own experience of divine protection ought to prevent him from temporizing.[760] To Henry Killigrew, who came to meet him at Vendome with a friendly message from Queen Elizabeth, he spoke with more definiteness and volunteered the expression of the most pious intentions. He declared "that he thought that God had hitherto preserved her Majesty from so many dangers for the setting forth of His word; and, he trusted, had done the like by him, in having preserved him from many perils; and how desirous he was to set forth religion as much as was in him; which he wished might be for the quiet, and setting forth of God's glory through Christendom (which he minded for his part) and to the discouragement of such as should stand in contrary."[761] But the hopes which Antoine thus held forth were delusive. The trusty agent of the Guises had already notified them that, so far as he could learn, Navarre's principal desire was to be cordially received by the king and his council, in order that the Spanish visitors at Paris might carry home to their master so favorable a report that Philip, convinced that Antoine was no insignificant personage in France,[762] might condescend to indemnify him for the wrong he had done him![763]

[Sidenote: Is received at court with studied discourtesy.]

[Sidenote: Antoine is deaf to remonstrance.]

But if the King of Navarre expected to make any deep impression upon the subjects of Philip through the friendly reception which he thus solicited by the most craven abasement, his arrival at St. Germain-en-Laye speedily undeceived him. Francis, instead of meeting him on his approach, in accordance with the customary rules of royal courtesy, and entertaining him graciously as they rode side by side to the palace, was purposely taken in an opposite direction on a hunting excursion. Humiliated by this neglect, the adherents of Navarre were still more annoyed when they found that no chamber had been set apart in the castle for the first prince of the blood, to whom immemorial usage conceded the apartments next to those of the reigning monarch. But neither these insults, nor the contemptuous treatment he received at the hands of the courtiers, by whom he was compelled to make every advance, were sufficient to arouse the prince to any noble resolution.[764] To regain the kingdom of which, by his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret, he had become the titular sovereign, was the great ambition of his life. This was impracticable without the support of the French court. He could not, therefore, afford to break with the all-powerful Guises. What were the prerogatives of the first prince of the blood in the administration of the French government, in comparison with the absolute sovereignty of the little kingdom on either slope of the Pyrenees? In vain did his faithful attendants remonstrate with him, and portray the path of honor as that of ultimate success and safety. Disgusted at his unmanly weakness, they returned crestfallen to their homes, or threw up his service for that of noblemen who, if ancient enemies, could at least prove themselves valuable and trustworthy patrons. The partisans of the Reformation, after waiting fruitlessly to hear a single word uttered in behalf of the churches, now everywhere rapidly multiplying, but still subjected to bitter persecution, disappointed, but full of faith in God, renounced their trust in princes, and awaited a deliverance, in Heaven's own time, from a higher source. Theodore Beza cited Navarre's shameful fall as a new and signal illustration of our Lord's own words: "A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven!"[765]

[Sidenote: Meets fresh indignities.]

[Sidenote: Philip offers Catharine assistance.]

[Sidenote: Antoine's appeals to Philip II.]

But the abasement of this irresolute prince was not yet complete. Submitting to the open contempt in which he was held, he not only took part in the solemn ceremony of the new king's anointing at Rheims,[766] where his inferiors were preferred to him, but attended the meetings of the royal council, where he was little wanted. At one of these sessions a fresh indignity was put upon him. Alarmed by the rising murmurs against the illegal rule of the Guises, Catharine had taken the first of a series of disgraceful steps, by invoking the intervention of a foreign prince in the affairs of France. She implored her royal son-in-law of Spain to lend her his support against the King of Navarre and other princes, who were desirous of "reducing her to the condition of a chambermaid," and of disturbing an otherwise peaceful country. Philip replied by an offer of his own assistance and of forty thousand men whom he professed to hold in readiness for a campaign against the rebels that meditated the overthrow of the French monarchy. The letter of his Catholic Majesty was purposely read in full council, in the hearing of Navarre. But, instead of arousing his indignation, it only excited new fears for the safety of his wife's dominions, and made him more submissively kiss the rod of iron with which the Guises ruled him.[767] Soon afterward he returned to Bearn, whence he made, before the close of the year, two ineffectual attempts to move the inflexible determination of Philip. In October he sent to the court of Spain Pierre, the Bastard of Navarre, who obtained the promise of an equivalent for Navarre, but was unable to secure any decided answer to his request for the island of Sardinia. But when, in December, Antoine despatched a second messenger, at the suggestion of the Duke of Albuquerque, to solicit permission for himself and Queen Jeanne to visit the King of Spain and "kiss his [Philip's] hand," with the view of obtaining such "an indemnity for his kingdom as some secret injunction of the emperor [Charles the Fifth], toward the end of his days, or his own conscience" might have suggested, the unfortunate prince discovered in how base and humiliating a manner he had been duped. It was not worth his while—such was the rude reply—for Antoine to expose his wife and himself to the fatigue of so long a journey, since no other answer could be given him than that which had been given to his predecessors, and to himself on the occasion of the late treaty of peace.[768] Was it with the expectation of such rewards that the first prince of the blood had pusillanimously declined to assert the rights of his rank and family, and to espouse the cause of the persecuted?

[Sidenote: The persecution continues.]

For persecuted the Protestants continued to be. The death of Henry did not for an instant interrupt the work of searching for and punishing reputed heretics. The brief term must be improved, during which the Spaniards and other strangers who had come to witness the marriage festivities were still present, to fulfil the promises given to the Dukes of Alva and Savoy, and demonstrate the catholicity of the Very Christian King.[769] Three days after the fatal termination of Henry's wound in the tournament, the English ambassador wrote to his government: "In the midst of all these great matters and business, they here do not stay to make persecution and sacrifice of poor souls: for the twelfth of this present, two men and one woman were executed for religion; and the thirteenth of the same there was proclamation made by the sound of trumpet, that all such as should speak either against the church or the religion now used in France should be brought before the bishops of the dioceses, and they to do execution upon them."[770] On the fourteenth of July, only four days after Henry's death, new steps were taken to bring to trial the five counsellors of parliament arrested on the day of the famous "Mercuriale." An account of these proceedings, and in particular of those instituted against Anne du Bourg, will presently be given.

[Sidenote: Denunciation and treachery at Paris.]

The increase of the Protestants in France during the past few months had been great. Even in the capital the progress of the new doctrines could not be hidden; but so carefully had the veil of secrecy been drawn over the conventicles, that, until a short time before Henry's death, the names and residences of the Parisian reformers had been almost entirely unknown to the argus-eyed clergy. But the treachery of one De Russanges—a goldsmith, who, for appropriating the charitable contributions of the church, had been deposed from the eldership—furnished to the enemy a complete list of the ministers, elders, and other principal men among the Protestants.[771] The information thus obtained was for a time left unimproved, in consequence of the sudden removal of the king; but the zeal of the chief persecutors had not cooled down. New and more stringent edicts were published, consigning to the flames, without form of process, all that made or attended conventicles. Liberal rewards were offered to stimulate denunciation. Domiciliary visits were enjoined upon the proper officers. Extraordinary powers were given to the "lieutenant-criminel" and a few of the counsellors of the Chatelet, known to be inimical to the "new doctrines," to act during the recess of parliament. It was even ordained by letters-patent of the king, that the very houses in which unlawful assemblages had taken place by night and the Lord's Supper had been profanely administered contrary to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, should be razed to the ground, and never rebuilt, as a memorial for all time.[772] The church followed the example of the civil power. The parishes resounded with excommunications of all that failed to reveal the heretical sentiments of their acquaintance, and with exhortations to watchfulness.[773] Parliament itself had lent its authority to the inquisitorial work, by enjoining upon owners or occupants of houses in the city or suburbs "to make diligent inquiry as to the good and Christian life" of such as lodged with them. In particular they were to inform against such as did not attend upon divine worship in the churches, especially upon feast-days.[774]

[Sidenote: Other informers.]

[Sidenote: "La petite Geneve" a scene of pillage.]

Meanwhile, to De Russanges other informers were added. One was a weak and unstable man whom persecution had once before—in the famous year of the Placards—driven to the basest of offices. Among others two apprentices, brought forward to testify against the Protestant employers who had dismissed them, were pliant instruments in the hands of the heretic-hunters. By a well-concerted movement a simultaneous descent was made, and entire families were put under arrest.[775] In some places, however, an unexpected resistance was encountered. The guests of one Visconte, with whom travellers from Switzerland and Germany frequently lodged, supposed the house to be attacked by robbers, and defended themselves with such bravery against their assailants, that they effected their retreat in safety. Their host's wife and his aged father alone were taken into custody. A dressed capon and some uncooked meat found in the larder—it was on a Friday that the incursion was made—graced the triumph of the captors. "Little Geneva," as that portion of the Faubourg St. Germain-des-Pres most frequented by Protestants was familiarly called, became a scene of indiscriminate pillage. The valuables of those who, through fear, had absented themselves, were greedily appropriated by the officials of the Chatelet and other courts, or fell into the hands of an unorganized force of robbers who gleaned what the others had left behind. In a day the rich became poor and the poor became rich. The depredations extended to other parts of the city where the existence of heresy or wealth was suspected. Paris, we are told, resembled a city taken by assault. Everywhere armed men on foot or on horseback were leading to prison men, women, and children of all ranks. The thoroughfares were clogged by wagons laden with furniture and other spoils. The street-corners were filled with plunder offered for sale. Never before, even when the inhabitants had fled panic-stricken from Paris in time of war, had the price of such commodities been so low. Numbers of little children, roaming the streets and ready to die of hunger, formed a pitiful accompaniment to the scene. But the tender mercies of the populace were cruel, and few dared to give a "Lutheran" shelter through fear of incurring extreme danger. The most incredible tales of midnight orgies were studiously circulated among the simple-minded people, and served to inflame yet more the lust of cruelty and gain.[776]

[Sidenote: The Protestants appeal to the queen mother.]

[Sidenote: She gives them encouragement.]

In this emergency the Protestants had recourse to the queen mother. Afraid to trust herself entirely to the Guises, the crafty Italian had, from the very commencement of the reign, sought to leave open a retreat in case a change should become necessary. And, in truth, jealousy of the cardinal and his brother, who seemed disposed to keep all the power in their own hands, while giving Catharine only a semblance of authority, was combined in her mind with hatred of Mary of Scots, their niece,[777] whose influence was as powerful with her son and as adverse to herself as that of Diana of Poitiers had been with her husband. Scarcely had the reformers perceived, by the zeal with which Du Bourg's trial was pressed, that the death of Henry had not bettered their condition, when they implored the Prince of Conde, his mother-in-law, Madame de Roye, and Admiral Coligny, to intercede in their behalf with Catharine. At the suggestion of the latter, they even addressed her a letter, in which they informed her of the great hopes they had in the preceding reign founded upon her kind and gentle disposition, and the prayers they had offered to God that she might prove a second Esther. They entreated her to prevent the new reign from being defiled with innocent blood, and to avert the anger of Heaven, which could only be appeased by putting an end to persecution. The crafty queen, desirous of retaining an influence that might one day be of great service, and solicitous, at any rate, of obtaining their confidence, at first assumed an offended tone. "With what am I menaced?" she said. "For what greater evil could God do me than He has done, removing him whom I loved and prized the most?" But presently becoming more gracious, she promised the noble suppliants to cause the persecution to cease, if the Protestants would intermit their conventicles and live quietly and without scandal.[778] A private letter of remonstrance, written by a gentleman formerly in the service of Queen Margaret of Navarre, is said to have had some weight in extorting this pledge. He reminded her that her present evil advisers were the same persons who had, in the first years of her married life, been advocates of her repudiation; that then in her affliction she had recourse to God, whose word she had read, choosing as her favorite psalm the 141st, albeit not of Marot's translating.[779] Her prayers had been answered in the birth of her children. But the cardinal had banished the psalm-book from the palace, and introduced the immodest songs of Horace and other lewd poets; and from that time there had come upon her a succession of misfortunes. Finally, he begged her to drive away the usurpers of the place that rightfully belonged to the princes of royal blood, and to bring up her children after the example of good king Josiah.[780]

[Sidenote: A second and more urgent address.]

But the promises of Catharine were given only to be broken. Finding the atrocious persecution still in operation, and seeing themselves hunted in their houses, the Protestants again approached her. They denounced the anger of God who would not leave Du Bourg unavenged. They warned her of the danger that over-much oppression would breed revolt—not on the part of those who had embraced the reformed doctrines as taught in the Gospel, from whom she might expect all obedience—but from others, a hundred-fold more numerous, whose eyes were open to the abuses of the papacy, but who, not having submitted themselves to the discipline of the church, would not brook persecution. The embankment, it was to be feared, might give way to the violence of the pressure, and the pent-up waters pour themselves abroad, carrying devastation and ruin to all the neighboring lands.[781] The implied menace aroused the affected indignation of Catharine; but, loth to lose her hold upon the Protestants, she again professed her pity for a sect whose adherents went to the most cruel torments as cheerfully as to a wedding feast, and she expressed a desire to have an interview with one of their ministers. The Protestants did their part, but Catharine failed to keep the appointment; and all that the minister could effect was to convey to her a copy of the yet unpublished Confession of Faith of the French Churches, which, it is more than likely, she never read.[782]

[Sidenote: Pretended orgies in "la petite Geneve."]

The insincerity of the queen mother's professions was by this time sufficiently apparent; yet the Protestants may be excused for applying, in their distress, to any one in power who made even a show of compassionate feelings. The outrages visited upon the inhabitants of "la petite Geneve" were brought to her notice, and she deigned to inquire into their occasion. But Charles of Lorraine had a ready mode of quieting her curiosity. Some verses found among the effects of the Protestants made mention of the death of Henry as an instance of the divine retribution. Other lines condemned Catharine for her excessive complaisance to the cardinal. These were first placed in her hands. Then the two apprentices, after having been well drilled in their lesson, were brought into her presence. It was a fearful tale they told, and much did it shock the ears of the virtuous Catharine. They pretended to describe orgies at which they had been present. In particular they remembered a conventicle of Protestants in the house of one Trouillas,[783] an advocate, held on Thursday of Holy Week. A great number of men and women, married and unmarried, had been present. The hour was about midnight. The sectaries had first listened to their preaching. Then a pig had been eaten in lieu of the paschal lamb. Finally the lamp had been extinguished, and indiscriminate lewdness followed.

[Sidenote: The device succeeds.]

The testimony of the boys—for such they were in years, if not in proficiency in vice—was enforced and embellished in the queen mother's hearing by the Cardinal of Lorraine. The trick had the desired effect. Believing, or feigning to believe, the improbable story, Catharine consented that the persecution of the "Christaudins" should proceed; while to some of her maids of honor, strongly suspected of leaning to the doctrines of the Reformation, she declared that she gave such full credit to this information, that, were she certain that they were Protestants, she would not hesitate, whatever favor or friendship she had hitherto borne them, to have them put to death. Fortunately, however, for the calumniated sect, there were among its adherents those who prized honor above life. Trouillas and his family, although among the number of those who had made good their escape, voluntarily returned and gave themselves into the hands of the civil authorities. When the latter would have put them on trial for their alleged heresy, they declined to answer to the charges on this point until the slanderous accusations affecting their personal morals had been investigated. The examination not only completely vindicated their character and revealed the grossness of the imposture of which they were the innocent victims, but exhibited the unpleasant fact that an attempt had been made to corrupt witnesses by representing to them that, against such execrable wretches as the accursed "Lutherans," it was a meritorious act to allege even what was false.[784] It is perhaps superfluous to add that Trouillas, in spite of his manly and successful defence, was unable to secure the punishment of his accusers. In fact, while the latter remained at large, both he and his family were kept in prison, until liberated, without satisfaction for the insult received, upon the publication of the edict of amnesty of March, 1560.[785]

[Sidenote: Cruelty of the populace.]

It would be a task neither easy nor altogether agreeable to chronicle the executions of Protestants in various cities of the realm. "Never," wrote Hubert Languet, "have the papists raged so; never before was there a more cruel persecution. The prisons are full of wretched men. The woods and solitary places can scarce contain the fugitives."[786] The Parliaments of Toulouse and Aix, as usual, vied in ferocity with that of Paris, where the Guises had not long since restored the "chambre ardente."[787] But the populace of Paris surpassed the judges in envenomed hatred. Not content with applauding the slow roasting of those whom the courts had condemned to this torture, they sought to aggravate the barbarity of other sentences. In August, 1559, a young carpenter was taken from prison to suffer death for his heretical views. He was to have been strangled and then burned. The mob, however, resented the leniency, or were indignant that a pleasant show should lose one-half of its attraction. They therefore resolved to defraud the hangman of his share in the work, and suspended the youth, yet living, above the roaring flames.[788]

[Sidenote: Traps for heretics.]

An ingenious method was devised for the detection of the reformers. At almost every street-corner a picture or image of the Virgin Mary, or of some one of the saints, was set up, crowned with chaplets of flowers, and with waxen tapers burning in its honor. Around this object of devotion were collected at all hours a crowd of porters, water-carriers, and the very dregs of the populace, boisterously singing the praises of the saint. Woe to the unlucky wight who, purposely or through negligence, failed to doff his hat or drop a coin into the box placed in convenient proximity! He was an impious man, a heretic, and fortunate was it for him if he escaped with his life. To refuse to swell the collection of the monk or nun that came to a man's own door to solicit funds for the trial of the Protestants, was equally perilous. In short, it was no unfrequent device for a debtor to get rid of the importunity of his creditor by raising the cry, "Au Christaudin, an Lutherien!" It went hard with the former if he did not both free himself from debt and spoil his creditor.[789]

It is time, however, that we should turn to chronicle the fortunes of a more illustrious victim—the most illustrious victim, in fact, of the first period of French Protestantism.

[Sidenote: Trial of President Anne du Bourg.]

[Sidenote: His successive appeals.]

Among the five counsellors of parliament arrested by Henry's orders at the "Mercuriale," as related in a previous chapter, Anne du Bourg had incurred his special displeasure by his fearless harangue, and with Du Bourg the trials began. A special commission was appointed for the purpose, consisting of President St. Andre, a maitre de requetes and two counsellors of parliament, Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, and Demochares, Inquisitor of the Faith. Brought before it, Du Bourg refused to plead, asserting his prerogative to be judged only by the united chambers of parliament. Letters-patent were therefore obtained from Henry, ordering the prisoner to acknowledge the authority of the commission, under pain of being declared guilty of heresy and of treason. Upon the results of the interrogatories, the Bishop of Paris declared Du Bourg a heretic, ordering him to be degraded from those holy orders which he had assumed, and then delivered over to the secular arm. From this sentence Du Bourg appealed to parliament, on the ground that it was an abuse of ecclesiastical power.[790] The judges—among whom his most determined enemies, the Cardinal of Lorraine and Cardinal Bertrand (the latter as Keeper of the Seals) were not ashamed to take their seats—rejected his appeal, and declared that there had been no abuse.

From the sentence given by the Bishop of Paris, Du Bourg next appealed to the Archbishop of Sens, his superior; and when the latter had confirmed his suffragan's decision, Du Bourg again had recourse to parliament. He pleaded that it was a violation of the very spirit of the law that the same person, acting (as did Bertrand) as Archbishop of Sens, should adjudicate upon a case which he had already acted upon in the capacity of Keeper of the Seals and Chief Justice of France.

[Sidenote: His officious advocate.]

The counsel whom Chancellor Olivier, newly reinstated in his office by Francis the Second, assigned to Du Bourg, at his earnest request, put forth strenuous exertions to induce his client to recant. Failing in this, he extorted a promise not to interrupt him in the defence he was about to make. Thereupon the officious advocate, after pleading, it is true, the injustice of the preceding trial, confessed his client's grievous spiritual errors, and desired, in his name, reconciliation with the church. The judges, glad to seize the opportunity of ridding themselves of a disagreeable case, promptly remanded the prisoner, and were about to depute two of their number to solicit the king's pardon in his behalf. At this moment a communication arrived, signed by Du Bourg, disavowing his counsel's admissions, persisting in his appeal and in the confession of his faith, which he was now ready to seal with his blood, and humbly begging the forgiveness of God for the cowardice of which he accused himself. It is needless to say that his appeal was rejected.

[Sidenote: Du Bourg's message to the Protestants of Paris.]

Again Du Bourg appealed from the Archbishop of Sens to the Archbishop of Lyons, "Primate of all the Gauls," and from his unfavorable decision to the parliament. Meanwhile he wrote to the Protestants of Paris, who watched his course with the deepest interest, recognizing the important influence which his firmness or his apostasy must exert on the interests of truth, and begged them not to be scandalized by a course that might appear to proceed from craven fear of death. If he thus had recourse to the judgments of the Pope's tools, he said, it was not through undue solicitude for life, nor because he in any wise approved their doctrine; but that he might have the better opportunity to make known his faith in as many places as possible, and prove that he had not precipitated his own destruction, by failing to make use of all legitimate means of acquittal. As for himself, he felt that he had been so strengthened by God's grace, that the day of his death was an object of desire, which he very joyfully awaited.[791]

[Sidenote: Du Bourg in the Bastile.]

At length the last appeal was rejected, and Du Bourg, under sentence of death, was remanded to the Bastile, to await the pleasure of the king. Many months had elapsed since his arrest, but his courage had risen with the trials he was called to face. To prevent any attempt to rescue him he had at one time been shut up in an iron cage, and the very passers-by had been forbidden to tarry and look up at the grim walls of the prison. But the captive was less solicitous to escape than his captors were to detain him. He resolutely declined to avail himself of a bull obtained for him from Rome by friends, through liberal payment of money, and opening the way for an appeal from the Primate of France to the Pope himself. The prison walls, it is said, resounded with the joyful psalms and hymns which he sang, to the accompaniment of the lute.[792]

[Sidenote: Intercession of the Elector Palatine.]

[Sidenote: His pathetic speech.]

A few days before Christmas the order was given for his execution. Two events determined the Cardinal of Lorraine: the assassination of President Minard, one of Du Bourg's judges, whose death was caused, doubtless, by the hand of one of the many whom he had wronged, although by some ascribed to the Protestants;[793] and the intercession of the Elector Palatine,[794] who by a special embassy had expressed the desire to make Du Bourg a professor of law in his university at Heidelberg. Unwilling to expose himself to further importunities from abroad which he was resolved to discourage, the prelate gave the signal for the closing of the tragic scene. The sentence was announced to Du Bourg in his cell by the deputed judges. It was that he should forthwith be taken to the place of execution and suspended above the flames until life should be extinct. But the courage of Du Bourg did not fail him. When the counsellors had fulfilled their commission and were about to retire, the fettered prisoner detained them, and uttered a speech of exquisite pathos. It was the bewitching spirit of delusion, he said, the messenger of hell, the capital enemy of truth, that had accused him before them, because he had abandoned her. To that evil spirit had they too readily listened and condemned him and others like him, the children of the God of infinite mercy. It was in no sense disobedience to their prince that they refused to offer sacrifice to Baal. Was it disloyalty to be willing to give up to their sovereign everything, even to the last garment they possessed; to pray for the prosperity and peace of his realm, and that all superstition and idolatry might be banished from its borders; to entreat the Almighty to fill him and those under him in authority with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing? Was it not rather disobedience to dishonor and anger God by impiety and blasphemy, and by transferring His glory to another?

[Sidenote: He depicts the constancy of the victims.]

The judges themselves were moved to tears as the prisoner pictured the fearful tortures which were daily inflicted upon the innocent Protestants at the bidding of that "red Phalaris," the Cardinal of Lorraine.[795] "Sufferings do not intimidate them," he said, "insults do not weaken them, satisfying their honor by death. So that the proverb suits you well, gentlemen: the conqueror dies, and the vanquished laments.... No, no, none shall be able to separate us from Christ, whatever snares are laid for us, whatever ills our bodies may endure. We know that we have long been like lambs led to the slaughter. Let them, therefore, slay us, let them break us in pieces; for all that, the Lord's dead will not cease to live, and we shall rise in a common resurrection. I am a Christian, yes, I am a Christian. I will cry yet louder, when I die, for the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ! And since it is so, why do I tarry? Lay hands upon me, executioner, and lead me to the gallows." Then resuming his address to his judges, he protested at great length that he died at their hands only for his unwillingness to recognize other justification, grace, merit, intercession, satisfaction, or salvation than in Jesus Christ. "Put an end, put an end," he cried, "to your burnings, and return to the Lord with amendment of life, that your sins may be wiped away. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him. Live, then, and meditate upon this, O senators; and I go to die!"[796]

[Sidenote: His death.]

He was led under a strong guard to the Place de Greve. A vast concourse of people had assembled to witness the death of the illustrious victim. "My friends," he cried, as with assured countenance he prepared for the execution, "I am here not as a thief or a robber, but for the Gospel." The people listened with breathless interest to the harangue he made them from the scaffold. Then, before he died, he exclaimed again and again: "My God, forsake me not, that I may not forsake Thee!" The judges did him the favor of permitting him to be strangled before he was burned. Perhaps this was done that the story might be circulated that he had at the last moment recanted; but his refusal to kiss the crucifix which was offered him was a visible proof to the contrary.[797] Thus he died, displaying, according to a friendly historian,[798] "the most admirable constancy shown by any that have suffered for this cause."

[Sidenote: His death a disastrous blow to the established church.]

[Sidenote: Account of an eye-witness.]

Du Bourg's martyrdom was the most terrible blow the established church had ever received in France. Never had a more disastrous blunder been committed by the Guises, than when they stirred Henry to imprison and try, and Francis to execute, the most virtuous member of the Parisian senate. Such strength of principle in the midst of affliction, such fortitude upon the brink of death, had never been seen before. The witnesses of the execution never forgot the scene. Thousands who had never before wavered in their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church, resolved that day to investigate the truth of the faith which had given him so signal a victory over death. "I remember," writes the most envenomed enemy of the Protestants that ever undertook to write their history, "when Anne Du Bourg, counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, was burned, that all Paris was astonished at the constancy of the man. As we returned to our colleges from the execution, we were melted in tears; and we pleaded his cause, after his death, anathematizing those unjust judges who had justly condemned him. His sermon at the gallows and upon the funeral pile did more harm than a hundred ministers could have done."[799]

[Sidenote: He deplores the result.]

But the martyrdom of Du Bourg was not a solitary case. The same consequences flowed from the public execution of others, whose dying words and actions shook to its very foundations the fabric of superstition reared in many a spectator's heart. Florimond de Raemond, himself an advocate of persecution in the abstract, noticed and deplored the inevitable result. "Meanwhile funeral piles were kindled in all directions. But as, on the one hand, the severity of justice and of the laws restrained the people in their duty, so the incredible obstinacy of those who were led to execution, and who suffered their lives to be taken from them rather than their opinions, amazed many. For who can abstain from wonder when simple women willingly undergo tortures in order to give a proof of their faith, and, while led to death, call upon Jesus Christ their Saviour, and sing psalms; when maidens hasten to the most excruciating torments with greater alacrity than to their nuptials; when men leap for joy at the terrible sight of the preparations for execution, and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of their sufferings; when, with indomitable strength of courage and joyful countenance, they endure the lacerating of their bodies by means of heated pincers; when, in short, like an immovable rock, they receive and break all the billows of the most bitter sufferings at the hands of the executioner, and, like those who have eaten the Sardinian herb, die laughing? The lamentable sight of such incredible constancy as this created no little doubt in the minds not only of the simple, but of men of authority. For they could not believe that cause to be bad for which death was so willingly undergone. Others pitied the miserable, and burned with indignation against their persecutors. Whenever they beheld the blackened stakes with the chains attached—memorials of executions—they could not restrain their tears. The desire consequently seized many to read their books, and to become acquainted with the foundations of the faith from which it seemed impossible to tear them by the most refined tortures.... Why need I say more? The greater the number of those who were consigned to the flames, the greater the number of those who seemed to spring from their ashes."[800]

[Sidenote: Fate of the remaining judges.]

Of the five counsellors of parliament arrested by the late king's orders, Du Bourg was the only martyr. By the others greater weakness was shown, or the judges were less willing to fulfil the cardinal's bloody injunctions.[801] La Porte was reprimanded for finding fault with the rigorous sentences of the "grand' chambre," and liberated on declaring those sentences good and praiseworthy. De Foix was condemned to make a public declaration of his belief in the sole validity of the sacrament as administered in the Romish Church, and to be suspended from his office for a year; Du Faur to beg pardon of God, the king, and his fellow-judges, for having maintained the propriety of holding a holy and free universal council before extirpating the heretics, to pay a considerable fine, and to suffer a five years' suspension. Fumee, more fortunate than his associates, was acquitted in spite of the most strenuous exertions of the Cardinal of Lorraine.[802]

[Sidenote: Public indignation against the Guises.]

[Sidenote: Must the faithful submit passively to usurpation?]

The savage persecution of the Protestants tended powerfully to strengthen the current of popular sentiment that was setting in against the government of the Guises. The sight of so many cruel executions for more than thirty years had not accustomed either the dissidents or the more reflecting among those of the opposite creed to the barbarous work. "Is it not time," they asked, "to put a stop to the ravages of the flames and of the sword of the executioner, when such signal failure has attended their application? Will the terror of the estrapade quench the burning courage of a sect which has spread over the whole of France, if it could not stifle the fire when first kindled at Meaux and at Paris? Has not the policy of extermination thus far persisted in only accelerating the growth of the new doctrines? Shall the sword rage forever, and must princes of the blood and the noblest and purest in lower ranks of society incur a common fate? Must the persecuted submit with as good grace to the arbitrary decrees of the usurpers who, through their connection with a minor king, have made themselves supreme, as to the legitimate authority of the monarch, advised by his council of state? The Gospel, doubtless, enjoins upon all Christians the most patient submission to legally constituted authority. Its success is to be won by the display of faith and obedience. But concession may degenerate into cowardice, and submission into craven subserviency. Obedience to a tyrant is rebellion against the king whom he defrauds of his authority, his revenues, and his reputation; and treason against God, whose name is suffered to be blasphemed, and whose children are unjustly distressed."

[Sidenote: Oppression becomes intolerable.]

[Sidenote: The convocation of the States General.]

The religious grievances thus ran parallel with the political, and could scarcely be distinguished in the great aggregate of the intolerable oppression to which France was subjected. The legislation of which such grave complaint was made, it must be admitted, was sometimes sufficiently whimsical. The resources of the royal treasury, for instance, being inadequate to meet the demands of creditors, it was necessary to silence their importunity. An inhuman decree was accordingly published, enjoining upon all petitioners who had come to Fontainebleau, where the king was sojourning, to solicit the payment of debts or pensions, to leave the court within twenty-four hours, on pain of the halter! A gallows newly erected in front of the castle was a significant warning as to the serious character of the threat.[803] In order to provide against uprisings such as the violent course taken was well calculated to occasion, the people must be disarmed. Accordingly, an edict was published, within a fortnight after the accession of Francis, strictly forbidding all persons from carrying pistols and other firearms, and the prohibition was more than once repeated during this brief reign.[804] While thus seeking to repress the display of the popular displeasure in acts of violence and sedition, the Guises resolved to prevent the overthrow of their usurped authority by legitimate means. The convocation of the States General was the safety-valve through which, in accordance with a wise provision, the overheated passions of the people were wont to find vent. But the assembling of the representatives of the three orders would be equivalent to signing the death-warrant of the Guises; while to Catharine, the queen mother, it would betoken an equally dreaded termination of long-cherished hopes. Both Catharine and the Guises, therefore, gave out that whoever talked of convening the States was a mortal enemy of the king, and made himself liable to the pains of treason.[805] Every precaution had been taken to make the boiler tight, and to render impossible the escape of the scalding waters and the steam; it only remained to be seen whether the structure was proof against an explosion.

[Sidenote: Calvin and Beza consulted.]

[Sidenote: They dissuade armed resistance.]

[Sidenote: Calvin foresees civil war.]

[Sidenote: More favorable replies.]

Such a catastrophe, indeed, seemed now to be imminent.[806] Among the more restless, especially, there was a manifest preparation for some new enterprise. The correspondence of the reformers reveals the fact that, as early as in the commencement of September, a knotty question had been propounded to the Genevese theologians:[807] "Is it lawful to make an insurrection against those enemies not only of religion, but of the very state, particularly when, according to law, the king himself possesses no authority on which they can rest their usurpation?" This was an interrogatory often put by those who would gladly have followed the example of a Scaevola, and sacrificed their own lives to purchase freedom for France. "Hitherto," notes Beza, "we have answered that the storm must be overcome by prayer and by patience, and that He will not desert us who lately showed by so wonderful an example (the death of Henry) not only what He can, but what He will do for His church. Until now this advice has been followed."[808] As the plan for a forcible overthrow of the Guises began to develop under the increasing oppression, and as malcontents from France came to the free city on Lake Leman in greater numbers, Calvin expressed his convictions with more and more distinctness, and endeavored to dissuade the refugees from embarking in so hazardous an undertaking. Its advocates in vain urged that they had received from a prince of the blood (entitled, by the immemorial custom of the realm, to the first place in the council, in the absence of his brother, the King of Navarre) the promise to present their confession of faith to the young monarch of France, and that thousands would espouse his defence if he were assailed. The reformer saw more clearly than they the rising of the clouds of civil war portending ruin to his native land. "Let but a single drop of blood be shed," said Calvin, "and streams will flow that must inundate France."[809] But his prudent advice was unheeded. Other theologians and jurists of France and Germany had been questioned. They replied more favorably, "It is lawful," they said, "to take up arms to repel the violence of the Guises, under the authority of a prince of the blood, and at the solicitation of the estates of France, or the soundest part of them. Having seized the persons of the obnoxious ministers, it will next be proper to assemble the States General, and put them on trial for their flagrant offences."[810]

[Sidenote: Godefroy de la Renaudie.]

[Sidenote: His grounds for revenge.]

An active and energetic man was needed to organize the movement and control it until the proper moment should come for Conde—the "mute" head, whose name was for the time to be kept secret—to declare himself. Such a leader was found in Godefroy de Barry, Seigneur de la Renaudie, a gentleman of ancient family in Perigord. The result justified the wisdom of the choice. Besides the discontent animating him in common with the better part of the kingdom, La Renaudie had private wrongs of his own to avenge. Less than a year before the accession of Francis, his brother-in-law, Gaspard de Heu, had been arrested as a pretended agent for bringing about an alliance between the King of Navarre and the Protestant princes of Germany.[811] In the gloomy castle of the Bois de Vincennes a private trial had been held, in which none of the accustomed forms of law were observed. De Heu had been barbarously tortured and secretly despatched.[812] That it was a judicial murder was proved by the extraordinary precautions taken to conceal the procedure from the knowledge of the public, and by the selection of the most lonely place about the castle for the grave into which his official assassins hastily thrust the body.[813] La Renaudie held the Cardinal of Lorraine to be the author of the cowardly deed.[814]

[Sidenote: He assembles the malcontents at Nantes, Feb. 1, 1560.]

[Sidenote: Well-devised plans.]

La Renaudie displayed incredible diligence.[815] In a few days he had travelled over a great part of France, visiting all the most prominent opponents of the Guises, urging the reluctant, assuring the timid, inciting all to a determined effort. On the first of February he assembled in the city of Nantes a large number of noblemen and of persons belonging to the "tiers etat," who claimed to be as complete a representation of the estates of France as the circumstances of the country would admit. It was a hazardous undertaking; but so prudently did the deputies deport themselves, that, although the Parliament of Brittany was then sitting at Nantes, they were not detected in the crowd of pleaders before the court. After solemnly protesting that the enterprise was directed neither against the majesty of the king and of the princes of the blood, nor against the legitimate estate of the kingdom, the assembly was intrusted with the secret of the name of the prince by whose authority the arrest of the Guises was to be attempted. The tenth of March[816] was fixed upon for the execution of the design. At that date, it was supposed, Francis and his court would be sojourning on the banks of the Loire.[817] Five hundred gentlemen were selected, and placed under the command of ten captains. All were to obey the directions of the "mute" chief, and his delegate, La Renaudie. Others of the confederates were pledged to prevent the provincial towns from sending assistance to the Guises. The force thus raised was to be disbanded only when a legitimate government had been re-established, and the usurpers brought to punishment.[818]

[Sidenote: Confidence of the Guises.]

The plan was well devised, and its execution was entrusted to capable hands. The omens, indeed, were favorable. The Cardinal of Lorraine and his brother, intoxicated by the uniform success hitherto attending their ambitious projects, despised such vague rumors of opposition as reached their ears. The party adverse to their tyranny, composed not only of Protestants and others who sought the best interests of their country, but recruited from the ranks of the restless and of those who had private wrongs to redress, was sure, on the first tidings of its uprising, to secure the active co-operation of many of the most powerful nobles, and possibly might enlist the majority of the population. Rarely has an important secret been so long and so successfully kept. It was deemed little short of a miracle that, in a time of peace, and in a country where the regal authority was so implicitly obeyed, a deliberative assembly of no mean size had been convened from all the provinces of France, and the Guises had obtained intimations of the conspiracy of their enemies by letters from Germany, Spain, and Italy, before any tidings of it reached the ears of their spies carefully posted in every part of the kingdom. So close a reticence augured ill for the permanence of the present usurpation.[819]

[Sidenote: The plot betrayed.]

But the timidity or treachery of a single person disconcerted all the steps so cautiously taken. The curiosity of Des Avenelles, a lawyer at Paris, in whose house La Renaudie lodged, was excited by the number of the visitors whom his guest attracted. As his host was a Protestant, La Renaudie believed that he risked nothing in making of him a confidant. But the secret was too valuable, or too dangerous, to be kept, and Des Avenelles secured his safety, as well as a liberal reward, by disclosing it to two dependants of the Guises, by whom it was faithfully reported to their masters.[820] The astounding information was at first received with incredulity, but soon a second witness was obtained. It could no longer be doubted that the blow of the approach of which letters from abroad, and especially from Cardinal Granvelle, in Flanders,[821] had warned them, was about to descend upon their heads.

[Sidenote: The "Tumult of Amboise."]

When fuller revelations of the extent of the plot were made, the court in consternation shut itself up in the defences of Amboise. Catharine de' Medici, recalling the warning of the Church of Paris, declared that now she saw that the Protestants were men of their word.[822]

[Sidenote: The Chatillons consulted.]

[Sidenote: Coligny gives Catharine good advice.]

Meanwhile, not only were vigorous measures adopted to guard against attack, but the most powerful nobles, who might be suspected of complicity, were sounded respecting their intentions. Coligny and his brother, D'Andelot, who, in virtue of their offices as Admiral and Colonel-General of the infantry, stood at the head of the army, received affectionate invitations from Catharine to visit the court. Upon their arrival they were taken apart, and were earnestly entreated by the queen mother and Chancellor Olivier to assist them by their counsel, and not to abandon the young king. To so urgent a request Coligny made a frank reply. He explained the existing discontent and its causes, both religious and political. Persecution, and the usurpation of those who were esteemed foreigners by the French, lay at the root of the troubles. He advised the relaxation of the rigorous treatment of the adherents of the Reformation. Extermination was out of the question. The numbers of the Protestants had become too great to permit the entertaining of such a thought. Moreover, the court might be assured that there were those—and they were not few—who would no longer consent to endure the cruelty to which, for forty years, they had been subjected, especially now that it was exercised under the authority of a young king governed by persons "more hated than the plague," and known to be inspired less by religious zeal than by excessive ambition, and by an avarice that could be satisfied only by obtaining the property of the richest houses in France. An edict of toleration, couched in explicit terms and honestly executed, was the only remedy to restore peace and quiet until the convocation of a free and holy council.[823]

[Sidenote: The edict of amnesty March, 1560.]

[Sidenote: It is promptly registered.]

The privy council, if not persuaded of the propriety of initiating a policy of toleration, were at least convinced of the necessity of yielding temporarily to the storm; and even the Guises deemed it advisable to make concessions, which could easily be revoked on the advent of more peaceful times. Accordingly, an edict of pretended amnesty was hastily drawn up, and as expeditiously published. The king was moved to take this step—so the edict made him say—by compassion for the number of persons who, from motives of curiosity or simplicity, had attended the conventicles of the preachers from Geneva—for the most part mechanical folk and of no literary attainments—as well as by reluctance to render the first year of his reign notable in after times for the effusion of the blood of his poor subjects. By the provisions of this important instrument the royal judges were forbidden to make inquisition into, or inflict punishment for any past crime concerning the faith: and all delinquents were pardoned on condition that they should hereafter live as good Catholics and obedient sons of Mother Holy Church. But from the benefits of the amnesty were expressly excluded all preachers and those who had conspired against the person of the king or his ministers.[824] The edict—much to the surprise of those who knew the sanguinary disposition of the judges—was promptly registered by parliament; whether it was that the judges were reconciled to the step by a secret article with which, it was said, they accompanied it, to guide in the future interpretation of the law, or that the majority regarded it as a piece of deceit.[825]

[Sidenote: A year's progress.]

[Sidenote: Beza's comment.]

In spite of its insincerity, however, the edict, wrung from the unwilling hands of the cardinal and the privy council, marks an important epoch in the history of the Reformed Church in France. Barely nine months had elapsed since five members of the Parisian Parliament had been thrown into the Bastile for daring to advocate a mitigation of the penalties pronounced against the Protestants, until the assembling of the long-promised Oecumenical Council. Little more than two months had passed since one of their number, and the most virtuous judge on the bench, had been ignominiously executed. And now the King of France, with the approval and almost at the instigation of the chief persecutor, proclaimed an oblivion of all offences against religion, and the liberation of all persons imprisoned for heresy. The reformers, who had rarely succeeded by their most strenuous exertions in obtaining the release of a few of their co-religionists, could scarcely restrain a smile when they discovered what a potent auxiliary they had obtained unawares—in the fears of their antagonists. "Would that you could read and understand the number of contradictory edicts they have written in a single month!" wrote one who took a deep interest in French affairs. "You would assuredly be amazed at their incredible fright, when no one is pursuing them, except Him whom they least fear! What you could not succeed in obtaining by any of your embassies in former years, they have given of their own accord to those who sought it not—the liberation of the entire number of prisoners on all sides. Most have been released in spite of their open profession of their faith. The injustice of the judges has, however, led to the retention of a few in chains up to this moment."[826]

[Sidenote: A powerful party had arisen.]

Notwithstanding its incompleteness and insincerity, however, "the Edict of Forgiveness," as it was termed, is a significant landmark in the history of French Protestantism. It is the point where begins the transition from the period of persecution to the period of civil war. By this concession, reluctantly granted and faithlessly executed, the first recognition was made of the existence of a large and powerful body of dissidents from the Roman Catholic Church. No longer were there a few scattered sectaries whose heretical views might be suppressed by their individual extermination. But a compact and wide-spread and rapidly growing party had assumed dimensions that defied any such paltry measures. It had outgrown persecution. The time for its eradication by open war or by secret massacre might yet come. Meanwhile, it was important to avert present disaster by partial concessions.

[Sidenote: Dismay of the court.]

[Sidenote: New alarms.]

The treachery of Des Avenelles had warned the Guises of their danger, but had left them in dismay and doubt. They knew not whom to trust, nor whence to expect the impending blow. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton's correspondence is full of interesting details throwing light upon the confusion and embarrassment of the Guises. "You shall understand," he writes on the seventh of March, "that the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine have discovered a conspiracy wrought against themselves and their authority, which they have bruited (to make the matter more odious) to be meant only against the king: whereupon they are in such fear as themselves do wear privy coats, and are in the night guarded with pistoliers and men in arms. They have apprehended eight or nine, and have put some to the torture." "Being ready to seal up this letter," he adds in a postscript, "I do understand that the fear of this commotion is so great, as the sixth of this present, the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Grand Prior, and all the knights of the Order which were here, watched all night long in the court, and the gates of this town were all shut and kept." On the fifteenth of March he writes: "These men here have their hands full, and are so busied to provide for surety at home, that they cannot intend to answer foreigners. This night a new hot alarm is offered, and our town doth begin again to be guarded. It is a marvel to see how they be daunted, that have not at other times been afraid of great armies of horsemen, footmen, and the fury of shot of artillery: I never saw state more amazed than this at some time, and by and by more reckless; they know not whom to mistrust, nor to trust.... He hath all the trust this daye, that to-morrow is least trusted. You can imagine your advantage." A few days later he writes again: "And now it was thought that this was but a popular commotion, without order, and not to be feared; when, unlooked for, the 17th, in the morning, about four of the clock, there arrived a company of 150 horsemen well appointed, who approached the court gates, and shot off their pistolets at the church of the Bonhommes, whereupon there was such an alarm and running up and down in the court, as if the enemies being encamped about them had sought to make an entry into the castle: and there was crying, To horse, to horse.... This continued an hour and a half,"[827] etc.

La Renaudie had actually established himself within six leagues of Amboise on the second of March, and had made his arrangements for the vigorous execution of his plans a fortnight later. The Guises were to be seized by a party that counted upon gaining secret admission to the castle, and opening the gates to comrades concealed in the neighborhood. But another act of treachery on the part of a confederate enabled the cardinal and his brother to frustrate a project so sagaciously laid and offering fair promise of success. The parties of cavaliers, who had succeeded, as by a miracle, in eluding the spies and agents of their enemies, posted in every important city of France, and had reached the very vicinity of the court without discovery, were caught in detail at their rendezvous. Companies of fifteen or twenty men thus fell into the hands of the troops hastily assembled by the urgent commands of the king's ministers.

[Sidenote: Treacherous capture of Castelnau.]

[Sidenote: Death of La Renaudie.]

A more powerful detachment of malcontents could not be so easily stopped, and threw itself into the castle of Noizay. It seemed more feasible to overcome them by stratagem than by open assault. The Duke of Nemours, having been sent to reduce the place, allowed Baron de Castelnau, commander of the insurgents, a personal interview. Here the Huguenot defended his adherents against the imputation of having revolted against their lawful monarch, and maintained that, on the contrary, they had come to uphold his honor and free him from the intrigues of the Guises. Seeing, however, the hopelessness of resisting the superior force of his enemy, Castelnau consented to capitulate, after exacting from the Duke of Nemours his princely word that he and his followers should receive no injury, and be permitted to have free access to the king, in order to lay before him their grievances. The pledge thus given was redeemed in no chivalrous manner. No account was made of the terms accepted. Castelnau and his companions-in-arms were at once thrown into the dungeons of Amboise, and steps were taken for their trial on a charge of treason.[828] Much larger numbers, arriving in the vicinity of Amboise ignorant of what had happened, were surrounded by cavalry and brought in tied to the horses' tails. Many a knight, better accoutred than his fellows, was despatched in a more summary manner and stripped of his armor, after which his body was carelessly thrown into a ditch by the roadside.[829] La Renaudie was so fortunate as to escape this fate and the yet more cruel doom that awaited him at Amboise, by meeting a soldier's death, while courageously fighting against a party of Guisards who fell in with him. He had just slain his antagonist—one Pardaillan, his own relative—when (on the nineteenth of March) he was himself instantly killed by the ball from an arquebuse fired by his opponent's servant.[830]

[Sidenote: Plenary powers given to the Duke of Guise.]

While the alarm arising from the "tumult" was yet at its height, the Guises took advantage of it to obtain yet larger powers, at the same time securing their position against future assaults. The king, in his terror, was readily induced to accept the warlike uncle of his wife as the only person on whose military prowess and faithfulness he could rely. He regarded the interest of the Guises and his own as identical; for he had been told, and he firmly believed it, that the enmity of the insurgents was directed no less against the crown than against its unpopular ministers.[831] On the seventeenth of March he therefore gave a commission to "Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, peer, grand master, and grand chamberlain," to be his lieutenant-general with absolute powers, promising to approve of all his acts, and authorizing him to impose the customary punishment upon the seditious, without form or figure of process.[832]

[Sidenote: Chancellor Olivier opposes.]

[Sidenote: Forgiveness to the submissive.]

There were those about the monarch who could not but look with concern upon the unlimited authority thus accorded to an ambitious prince. Chancellor Olivier was of this number. He at first refused to affix the seal of state to a paper which falsely purported to have been made by advice of the council. It was, however, at length decided that another edict should be published contemporaneously, extending forgiveness to all that had assembled in arms in the neighborhood of the city of Amboise, under color of desiring to present to the king a confession of their faith. To avail themselves of the benefits of this pardon, they must, within "twice twenty-four hours," return to their homes, in companies of two, or, at the most, three together. The disobedient were to be hung without process of law, and the tocsin might be rung to gather a force for the purpose of capturing them. The king, however, invited all that desired to present him their requests to depute one of their number to lay them before his council, promising, on the pledge of his royal word, redress and security.[833]

[Sidenote: Explained away by a new edict.]

The acts of the court little agreed with these words of clemency. Many of those who, in obedience to the edict, turned their steps homeward, found that edict to be only a snare for their simplicity. Indeed, five days only had elapsed when, on the twenty-second of March, a fresh edict, explanatory of the former, excluded from the amnesty all that had taken part in the conspiracy![834]

[Sidenote: Carnival of blood.]

[Sidenote: The young king visibly affected.]

But it was at Amboise that the vengeance of the Guises found its widest scope. Day and night the execution of the prisoners stayed not. Their punishment was ingeniously diversified. Some were decapitated, others hung; still others were drowned in the waters of the Loire.[835] The streets of Amboise ran with blood, and the stench of the unburied corpses threatened a pestilence. Ten or twelve dead bodies, in full clothing and tied to a single pole, floated down from time to time toward the sea, and carried tidings of the wholesale massacre to the cities on the lower Loire. Neither trial nor publication of the charge preceded the summary execution. Most frequently the victims were placed in the hangman's hand immediately after the hour for dinner, that their dying agonies might furnish an agreeable diversion to the ladies of the court, who watched the gibbet from the royal drawing-rooms. Few, besides the Duchess of Guise, daughter of Renee of Ferrara, manifested any disgust at the repulsive spectacle. Some of the prisoners who importunately insisted on seeing the king, and making before him a profession of their faith, were summarily hanged from the castle windows. One intrepid reformer had been so fortunate as to be admitted to the queen mother's presence, and there, by his ready and cogent reasoning, had well-nigh brought the Cardinal of Lorraine to admit that his view of the Lord's Supper was correct. Catharine's attention having been for a moment withdrawn, when she returned to the discussion the man had disappeared. Actuated by curiosity or by a desire to spare his life, she requested him to be sent for. It was too late; he had already been despatched.[836] For the most part, the victims displayed great constancy and courage. Many died with the words of the psalms of Marot and Beza on their lips.[837] Castelnau, after having in his interrogatory made patent to all the hypocrisy of the cardinal and the cowardice of the chancellor, died maintaining that, before he was pronounced guilty of treason, the Guises ought to be declared kings of France. Villemongys, upon the scaffold, dipped his hands in the blood of his companions, and, raising them toward heaven, exclaimed in a loud voice: "Lord, this is the blood of Thy children, unjustly shed. Thou wilt avenge it!"[838] The body of La Renaudie was first hung upon one of the bridges of Amboise, with the superscription: "La Renaudie, styling himself Laforest, author of the conspiracy, chief and leader of the rebels." Afterward it was quartered, and his head, in company with the heads of others, was exposed upon a pole on a public square.[839] The sight of these continually recurring executions, succeeding a fearful struggle in which so many of his subjects had taken part, is said to have affected even the young king, who asked, with tears, what he had done to his people to animate them thus against him. It is even reported that, catching for an instant, through the mist with which his advisers sought to keep his mind enshrouded, a glimpse of the true cause of the discontent, he made a feeble suggestion, which was easily parried, that the Guises should for a time retire from the court, in order that he might find out whether the popular enmity was in reality directed against him, or against his uncles.[840] Their fertile invention, however, was not slow in concocting a story that turned his short-lived pity into settled hatred of the "Huguenot heretics."