[Sidenote: Financial embarrassment.]

[Sidenote: The religions situation.]

[Sidenote: Catharine's neutrality.]

Yet the position of Catharine, it must be admitted, was by no means an easy one. The ablest statesman might have shrunk from coping with the financial difficulties that beset her. The crown was almost hopelessly involved. Henry the Second had in the course of a dozen years accumulated, by prodigal gifts and by needless wars, a debt—enormous for that age—of forty-two millions of francs, besides alienating the crown lands and raising by taxation a larger sum of money than had been collected in eighty years previous.[981] The Venetian Michele summed up the perplexities of the political situation under two questions: How to relieve the people, now thoroughly exhausted;[982] and, how to rescue the crown from its poverty. But, in reality, the financial embarrassment was the least of the difficulties of the position Catharine had assumed. The kingdom was rent with dissensions. Two religions were struggling—the one for exclusive supremacy, the other at least for toleration and recognition. Catharine had no strong religious convictions to actuate her in deciding which of the two she should embrace. Two powerful political parties were contending for the ascendency—that of the princes of the blood and of constitutional usage, and that of an ambitious family newly introduced into the kingdom, but a family which had succeeded in attaching to itself most, if not all, of the favorites of preceding kings. Catharine's ambition, in the absence of any convictions of right, regarded the success of either as detrimental to her own authority. She had, therefore, resolved to play off the one against the other, in the hope of being able, through their mutual antagonism, to become the mistress of both. Under the reign of Francis the Second she had gained some notion of the humiliation to which the Guises, in their moment of fancied security, would willingly have reduced her. Yet, after all, the illegal usurpation of the Guises, who might, from their past experience, be more tolerant of her ambitious designs, was less formidable to her than the claims of the Bourbon princes, based as were these claims upon ancestral usage and right, and equally fatal to her pretensions and to those of their rivals. It was a situation of appalling difficulty for a woman sustained in her course by no lofty consciousness of integrity and devotion to duty—for a woman who was by nature timid, and by education inclined to resort for guidance to judicial astrology or magic rather than to religion.[983]

[Sidenote: Opening of the States General, Dec. 13, 1560.]

A brief delay in the opening of the sessions of the States General was necessitated by the sudden change in the administration. At length, on the thirteenth of December, the pompous ceremonial took place in the city of Orleans. It was graced by the presence of the boy-king, Charles the Ninth, and of his mother, his brother, the future Henry the Third, and his sister Margaret. The King of Navarre, the aged Renee of Ferrara, and other members of the royal house, also figured here with all that was most distinguished among the nobility of the realm.

[Sidenote: Address of Chancellor De l'Hospital.]

[Sidenote: Co-existence of two religions impossible.]

To the chancellor was, as usual, entrusted the honorable and responsible duty of laying before the representatives of the three orders the reasons of their present convocation. This office he discharged in a long and learned harangue. If the hearers were treated without stint to that profusion of ancient learning, upon which the orators of the age seem to have rested a great part of their claim to patient attention, they also listened to much that was of more immediate concern to them, respecting the origin of the States General, and the occasions for which they had from time to time been summoned by former kings. L'Hospital announced that the special object of the present meeting was to devise the means of allaying the seditions which had arisen in consequence of religious differences. "These," said L'Hospital, "are the causes of the most serious dissensions. It is folly to hope for peace, rest, and friendship between persons of opposite creeds. A Frenchman and an Englishman holding a common faith will entertain stronger affection for each other than two citizens of the same city who disagree about their theological tenets."[984] So powerful was still the prejudice of the age with one who was among the first to catch a glimpse of the true principles of religious toleration! That two discordant religions should permanently co-exist in a state, he agreed with most of his contemporaries in regarding as utterly impossible. For how could the adherents of the papacy and the disciples of the new faith conceal their differences under the cloak of a common charity and mutual forbearance?[985]

[Sidenote: Names of factions must be abolished.]

Yet the dawn of more enlightened principles could be detected in a subsequent part of the chancellor's speech. After prescribing a universal council—that panacea which all the state doctors of the day offered for the cure of the ills of the body politic—he advocated the employment, meantime, of persuasion instead of force, of gentleness rather than rigor, of charity and good works, as more effective than the most trenchant of material weapons. And, while he recommended his hearers to pray for the conversion of the erring, he exclaimed: "Let us remove those diabolical words, names of parties, factions, and seditions—'Lutherans,' 'Huguenots,' and 'Papists'—and let us retain only the name of 'Christians.'"[986] In concluding his address, he did not forget to dwell upon the lamentable condition of the royal finances, thrown into almost inextricable confusion by twelve or thirteen years of continuous war and the expenses attending three magnificent weddings. He begged the estates, while they exposed their grievances, not to fail to provide the king with means for meeting his obligations.[987]

[Sidenote: Effrontery of Cardinal Lorraine.]

[Sidenote: De Rochefort orator for the noblesse.]

[Sidenote: L'Ange for the tiers etat.]

It now devolved upon the deputies to prepare a statement of their grievances, and for this purpose the "noblesse" retired to the Dominican, the clergy to the Franciscan, and the "tiers" to the Carmelite convents.[988] The Cardinal of Lorraine had had the effrontery to solicit, through his creatures, the honor of representing the three orders collectively; but the proposition had been rejected with undissembled derision. Loud voices were heard from among the deputies of the people, crying, "We do not choose to select him to speak for us of whom we intend to offer our complaints!"[989] Three orators were deputed to speak for the three orders.[990] The Sieur de Rochefort, in behalf of the nobles, declared their approval of the government of Catharine, but insisted at some length upon the necessity of conciliating their good will by a studious regard for their privileges. He likened the king to the sun and the "noblesse" to the moon. Any conflict between the two would produce an eclipse that would darken the entire earth. He denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the non-residence of the priests;[991] and he closed by presenting a petition, which was read aloud by one of the secretaries of state, demanding the grant of churches for the use of those nobles who preferred the purer worship.[992] The Bordalese lawyer, Jean L'Ange, in the name of the people, dwelt chiefly on the three capital vices of the clergy—ignorance, avarice, and luxury,[993] and portrayed very effectively the general disorders, the intolerable tyranny of the Guises, the exhausted state of the public treasury, and the means of restoring the Church to purity of faith and regularity of discipline.

[Sidenote: Arrogant speech of Quintin for the clergy.]

[Sidenote: Presumption in favor of the Catholic Church.]

But it was the clerical delegate, Jean Quintin, that attracted most attention. Standing between the other two orators, he delivered a speech of great length and insufferable arrogance. He admitted that the clergy might need reformation; but the Church with its hierarchy must not be touched—that was the body of Christ. Charles must defend the Church against heresy—against that Gospel falsely and maliciously so called, which consisted in profaning churches, in breaking the sacred images, in the marriage of priests and nuns. He must not suffer the Reformation to affect the articles of faith, the sacraments, traditions, ordinances, or ceremonial. Should any one venture to resuscitate heresies long dead and buried, he begged the king to declare him a champion of heresy and to proceed against him. He insisted on the presumption in favor of the Catholic Church, and demanded the unconditional submission of its opponents. "They must believe us, without waiting for a council; not we them." He was warm in his praise of the Emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian III., who confiscated the goods of heretics, banished them, and deprived them of the right of conveying or receiving property by will. He raised his voice particularly in behalf of Burgundy and of his own diocese of Autun, whose inhabitants "were well-nigh drowned by the much too frequent inundations of pestilent books from the infected lagoons of Geneva."[994]

[Sidenote: Temporal interests.]

[Sidenote: Sad straits of the clergy.]

[Sidenote: A word for the down-trodden people.]

In the midst of this tirade against the inroads of Calvinism, the prudent doctor of canon law did not, however, altogether lose sight of the temporal concerns of the priesthood. He proffered an urgent request for the restoration of canonical elections, laying the growth of heresy altogether to the account of the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction by the Concordat in 1517. The sanction being re-established, "the detestable and damnable sects, the execrable and accursed heresies of to-day" would incontinently flee from the church. If he painted the portrait of the prelate elected by the suffrages of his diocese in somewhat too nattering colors, he certainly gave a vivid picture of the sad straits to which the clergy were reduced by the imposition of the repeated tithes on their revenues, now become customary. Masses were unsaid, churches had been stripped of their ornaments. Missals and chalices even had, in some places, been sold at auction to meet the exorbitant demands of royal officers. It was to be feared that, if Christian kings continued to lay sacerdotal possessions under contribution, the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this generation, and would condemn it. Lest, however, this commination should not prove terrible enough, the examples of Belshazzar and others were judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of Clerophilus, or Maximus, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the interest of the "noblesse," and even of the poor, down-trodden people—begging the king to lighten the burdens which that so good, so obedient people had long borne patiently, and not to suffer this third foot of the throne to be crushed or broken.[995] When the crown had returned to this course of just action, the Church would pray very devoutly in its behalf, the nobility fight valiantly, the people obey humbly. It would be paradise begun on earth.[996]

[Sidenote: The clergy alone makes no progress.]

Thus spoke the chosen delegates of the three orders when summoned into the royal presence for the first time after the lapse of seventy-seven years. The nobility and clergy vied with each other in extolling their own order; the people made little pretension, but had a large budget of grievances demanding redress. Nearly forty years had the Reformation been gaining ground surely and steadily. It had found, at last, recognition more or less explicit in the noblesse and the "tiers etat." But the clergy had made no progress, had learned nothing. The speech of Quintin, their chosen representative, on this critical occasion, was long and tiresome; but, instead of convincing, it only excited shame and disgust.[997]

Indeed, an allusion of his to the favorers of heresy daring to present petitions in behalf of the Huguenots, who demanded places in which to worship God, was taken by Admiral Coligny as a personal insult to himself, for which Quintin was compelled to make a public apology.[998]

[Sidenote: Coligny presents a Huguenot petition.]

The incredible supineness of Antoine of Navarre prevented the States from demanding with much decision that the regency should be entrusted in the hands of him to whom it belonged of right. For how could enthusiasm be manifested in a matter regarding which the person chiefly interested showed such utter indifference? But the religious demands of the Huguenots were made distinctly known. As expressed in a petition presented in their name to the queen mother by the Admiral's hands, these demands were comprehended under three heads: the convocation of a free universal council, which should decide definitely respecting the religious questions in dispute; the immediate liberation of all prisoners whose only crime was of a religious character—even if disguised under the false accusation of sedition; and liberty of assembling for the purpose of listening to the preaching of God's word, and for the administration of the sacraments, under such conditions as the royal council might deem necessary for the prevention of disorder.[999] So gracious was Catharine's answer, so brilliant were the signs of promise, that there were those who hoped soon to behold in France a king "very Christian" in fact no less than in name.[1000]

[Sidenote: The estates prorogued.]

[Sidenote: Meanwhile prosecutions for religion to cease.]

It was, however, no easy matter to grant these reasonable requests. The Roman Catholic party resisted, with all the energy of desperation, the concession of any places for worship according to the reformed faith. Catharine was loth to take the decided step of disregarding their remonstrances. It seemed more convenient to avail herself of the representations of the majority of the delegates of the "tiers etat," who regarded it as necessary to apply for new powers from their constituents, in consequence of the death of the monarch who had summoned them. The estates were accordingly prorogued to meet again at Pontoise on the first of May.[1001] The matter of the "temples" was adjourned until that time. Meanwhile, in order to conciliate the Huguenots, orders were issued that all prosecutions for religious offences should surcease, and that the prisoners should at once be liberated, with the injunction to live in a Catholic fashion for the future.[1002] This concession, poor as it was, met with opposition on the part of the Parisian parliament, and was only registered—after more than a month's refusal—because of the king's express desire.[1003] But it was far from satisfying the Protestants; for, in answer to their very first demand, they were referred to the Council of Trent, which the pontiff had recently ordered to reassemble at the coming Easter. Such a convocation—neither convened in a place of safe access, nor consisting of the proper persons to represent Christendom, nor under free conditions[1004]—could not be recognized by the Huguenots of France as a competent tribunal to act in the final adjudication of their cause. They must refuse to appear either at Trent or at the assembly of French prelates, to be held as a preliminary to their proceeding to the universal council, in accordance with the resolutions of the notables at Fontainebleau.[1005]

[Sidenote: Return of the fugitives.]

Yet, as contrasted with the earlier legislation, the provisional dispositions of the royal letter were highly encouraging. They permitted a large number of persons incarcerated for religion's sake to issue from prison. The exiles, it was said, returned tenfold as numerous as they left the country. Great was the indignation of their adversaries when all these, with numbers recruited from the ranks of the reformers in England, Flanders, Switzerland, and even from Lucca, Florence and Venice, began to preach with the utmost boldness. They might be accused of gross ignorance, and of uttering a thousand stupid remarks, but one thing could not be denied—every preacher had a crowd to hear him.[1006]

[Sidenote: Charles writes to stop ministers from Geneva.]

[Sidenote: Reply of the Genevese.]

No such toleration, however, as that now proclaimed was necessary to induce the ministers of the reformed doctrines, who had qualified themselves for their apostolic labors under the teaching of Calvin and Beza, to enter France. The gibbet and the fearful "estrapade" had not deterred them. The prelates, therefore, induced the queen mother to attempt by other means to stem the flood of preachers that poured in from Geneva. On the twenty-third of January, seven or eight days before the adjournment of the States General, a letter was despatched in the name of Charles IX. to the syndics and councils of the city of Geneva. Its tone was earnest and decided. It had appeared—so the king was made to say—from a very careful examination into the sources of the existing divisions, that they were caused by the seditious teachings of preachers mostly sent by the Genevese authorities, or by their principal ministers, as well as by an infinite number of defamatory pamphlets, which these preachers had disseminated far and wide throughout the kingdom. To them were directly traceable the recent commotions. He therefore called on the magistracy to recall these sowers of discord, and threatened in no doubtful terms to take vengeance on the city should the same course be continued after the receipt of the present warning.[1007] Never was accusation more unjust, never was unjust accusation answered more promptly and with truer dignity. On the very day of the receipt of the king's letter (the twenty-eighth of January) the magistrates deliberated with the ministers, and despatched, by the messenger who had brought it, a respectful reply written by Calvin himself. So far, they said, from countenancing any attempts to disturb the quiet of the French monarchy, it would be found that they had passed stringent regulations to prevent the departure of any that might intend to create seditious uprisings. They had themselves sent no preachers into France, nor had their ministers done more than fulfil a clear dictate of piety, in recommending, from time to time, such as they found competent, to labor, wherever they might find it practicable, for the spread of the Gospel, "seeing that it is the sovereign duty of all kings and princes to do homage to Him who has given them rule." As for themselves, they had condemned a resort to arms, and had never counselled the seizure of churches, or other unauthorized acts.[1008]

[Sidenote: Conde cleared and reconciled to Guise.]

At no time since the death of the late king had the reversal of the sentence against Conde been doubtful. The time had now arrived for his complete restoration to favor. The first step was taken in the privy council, where, on the thirteenth of March, the chancellor declared that he knew of no informations made against him. Whereupon the prince was proclaimed, by the unanimous voice of the council, sufficiently cleared of all the charges raised by his enemies. The Bourbon, who had refused, until his honor should be fully satisfied, to enjoy the liberty which he might easily have obtained, had been invited by Charles to the court, which was sojourning at Fontainebleau, and now resumed his seat in the council.[1009] Just three months later (on Friday, the thirteenth of June) the Parliament of Paris, after a prolonged examination, in which all the forms of law were observed with punctilious exactness, gave its solemn attestation of the innocence of Louis of Conde, of Madame de Roye, his mother-in-law, and of the others who had so narrowly escaped being plunged with him in a common destruction.[1010] Such declarations might be supposed to savor indifferently well of hypocrisy. They were, however, outdone in the final scene of this pompous farce, enacted about two months later in one of the halls of the castle of St. Germain. On the twenty-fourth of August a stately assembly gathered in the king's presence. Catharine, the princes of the blood, five cardinals, and a goodly number of dukes and counts, were present; for Louis of Bourbon-Vendome, Prince of Conde, and Francis of Guise were to be publicly reconciled to each other. Charles first announced the object for which he had summoned this assemblage, and called upon the Duke of Guise to express his sentiments. "Sir," said the latter, addressing Conde, "I neither have, nor would I desire to have, advanced anything against your honor; nor have I been the author or the instigator of your imprisonment!" To which Conde replied: "Sir, I hold to be bad and miserable him or those who have been its causes." Nothing abashed, Guise made the rejoinder: "I believe that it is so; that concerns me in no respect." After this gratifying exhibition of convenient memory, if not of Christian forgiveness, the prince and duke, at the king's request, embraced each other; and the auditory, highly edified, broke up.[1011] It was fitting that this hollow reconciliation should take place on the very day upon which, eleven years later, a more treacherous compact was to bear fruit fatal to thousands.

[Sidenote: Humiliation of Navarre.]

[Sidenote: The boldness of the Particular Estates of Paris,]

[Sidenote: secures Antoine more consideration.]

It has been necessary to anticipate the events of subsequent months, in order to give the sequel of the singular procedure. We must now return to the spring of this eventful year. It was not long after the adjournment of the States General before the King of Navarre began to perceive some results of his humiliating agreement with Catharine de' Medici. The Guises were received by her with greater demonstrations of favor than were the princes of the blood. The keys of the castle were even intrusted to the custody of Francis, on the pretext that he was entitled to this privilege as grand master of the palace. In vain did Antoine remonstrate against this insulting preference, and threaten to leave the court if his rival remained. Catharine found means to detain Constable Montmorency, who had intended to leave court in company with Navarre, and the latter was compelled to suppress his disgust. But the deliberations of the Particular Estates of Paris, held soon after, had more weight in securing for Navarre a portion of the consideration to which he was entitled. Disregarding the prohibition to touch upon political matters, they boldly discussed the necessity of an account of the vast sums of money that had passed through the hands of the Guises, and of the restitution of the inordinate gifts which the cardinal and his brother, Diana of Poitiers, the Marshal of St. Andre, and even the constable, had obtained from the weakness of preceding monarchs. This boldness disturbed Catharine. She employed the constable to mediate for her with Antoine; and soon a new compact was framed, securing to the latter more explicit recognition as lieutenant-general, and a more positive influence in the affairs of state.[1012]

[Sidenote: His assurances to the Ambassador of Denmark.]

That influence he occasionally seemed anxious to exert in behalf of the reformed faith. He assured Gluck, the Danish ambassador, that, before the expiration of the year, he would cause the Gospel to be preached throughout the entire kingdom. And he displayed some magnanimity when he answered Gluck, who had expressed anxiety that Lutheranism should be substituted for Calvinism in France, that "inasmuch as the two Protestant communions agreed in thirty-eight of the forty articles in which both differed from the Pope, all Protestants ought to make common cause against the oppression of the Roman See; it would afterward be an easy task to arrange their minor differences, and restore the Church to its pristine purity and splendor."[1013]

[Sidenote: Intrigue of Artus Desire.]

[Sidenote: Curiosity to hear Huguenot preaching and singing.]

So wonderful an awakening as that which was now witnessed in almost every part of France could not long continue without arousing violent resistance. The very signs that seemed to indicate the speedy triumph of the Reformation were, indeed, the occasion of the institution of an organized opposition of the most formidable character. Hints of the propriety of calling in foreign assistance had even before this time been audibly whispered. The theologians of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the apparent favor displayed for the reformed teachers by the court, had despatched one Artus Desire with a letter to Philip the Second, in which they supplicated his intervention in behalf of the Catholic religion, now threatened with ruin. Happily the enterprise was nipped in the bud, and, on the arrest of Artus at Orleans, on his way to Spain, the nefarious conspiracy was fully divulged. The priestly agent, after craven prayers for his life, was immured for a time in a cloister.[1014] Well might the Romish party fear. The curiosity to hear the preaching of the Word of God by men of piety and learning, the desire to hear those grand psalms of Marot solemnly chanted by the chorus of thousands of human voices, had infected every class of society. The records of the chapters of cathedrals, during this period of universal spiritual agitation, are little else, we are told, than a list of cases of ecclesiastical discipline instituted against chaplains, canons, and even higher dignitaries, for having attended the Huguenot services. At Rouen, the chief singer of Notre Dame acknowledged before the united chapter that he had often been present at the "assemblies"—nay, more—"that he had never heard anything there which was not good."[1015]

[Sidenote: Constable Montmorency's disgust.]

In the court at Fontainebleau the contagion daily spread. Beza, it is true, gave expression to the warning that "not to be a Papist and to be a Christian were different things."[1016] But of external marks of an altered condition of things there was no lack. Little account was taken of the arrival of Lent. Meat was openly sold and eaten.[1017] Huguenot preachers conducted their services publicly in the apartments of the Prince of Conde and of Admiral Coligny, first outside of the castle, and then within its precincts. Catharine herself, partaking of the general zeal, declared her intention to hear the Bishop of Valence preach before the young king and the court, in the saloon of the castle. Such was the news that irritated and alarmed the aged, but still vigorous Anne of Montmorency. By birth, by tradition, by long association, the constable was a devoted Roman Catholic. If any motive were wanting to determine him to cling to the ancient regime, it was afforded by the proposition made in the late Particular Estates of Paris that the favorites of the last two monarchs should be required to disgorge the enormous gifts that had helped to impoverish the nation. This project, for which he held the Huguenots responsible, was repugnant alike to his pride and to his exorbitant avarice. His prejudices were, moreover, skilfully fanned into a flame by interested companions. His wife, Madeleine de Savoie—partly from conviction, partly through jealousy of his children by a former marriage—her brother, the Count of Villars,[1018] and the Marshal of St. Andre—a crafty, insidious adviser—plied him with plausible arguments. Diana, the Duchess of Valentinois, solicited him by daily messages. How could the first Christian baron abandon the ancient faith? How could the favorite of Henry the Second consent to let his rich acquisitions escape him?[1019]

[Sidenote: Marshal Montmorency remonstrates.]

On one occasion the constable was himself induced to attend the service in the castle at which Bishop Montluc preached; but he came out highly displeased at the doctrines he had heard,[1020] and more convinced than ever that there was a secret compact between Catharine de' Medici and the King of Navarre to change the religion of the country. The next day a number of high nobles, in part ancient enemies—Montmorency, Guise, Montpensier, St. Andre—met in the obscure chapel of the "basse-court," where a Dominican monk held forth to the common retainers of the royal court. The constable's eldest son, the upright but sluggish Marshal de Montmorency, himself having a secret leaning for the reformed doctrines, was alarmed by this threatening demonstration, and immediately sought, in a private interview with his father, to deter him from entering the arena as the ally of his former antagonists and the opponent of his own nephews, Coligny and D'Andelot. Better, he urged, to be umpire than participant in so ungrateful a contest. The Chatillons, of whom Anne had said that, if they were as good Christians in deed as they were in profession, they would exercise forgiveness toward the Guises, themselves came to see their offended uncle, and protested that they wished the cardinal and his brothers no evil, but desired merely to remove their ability to do them further damage. Neither his son nor his nephews made any impression on the obstinate disposition of the constable. He had caught at the bait by which skilful anglers allured him. He fancied himself the chosen champion of the church of his fathers, now assaulted by redoubtable enemies. What a glorious prospect lay before him if he succeeded! What a halo would surround his name, if the splendor of the military achievements of his youth should be thrown into the shade by the superior glory of having, in his old age, rescued the most Christian nation of the world from the inroads of heresy! To every argument he could only be brought to repeat the trite sophism, "that a change of religion could not be effected without a revolution in the state," and that, though he had no fear of being compelled to restore the gifts he had received from the late monarchs, he would not suffer their actions to be questioned or their honor impeached.[1021]

[Sidenote: The Triumvirate formed.]

[Sidenote: A spurious statement.]

On Easter day (the sixth of April), the finishing stroke was given to the new compact between the leaders of the anti-reformed party. Anne de Montmorency and Francois de Guise partook side by side of the sacrament in the chapel of Fontainebleau, and that evening Guise, Joinville, and St. Andre were invited guests at the table of the constable.[1022] To the union now distinctly formed, its opponents, in allusion to the number of the foremost members and to their proscriptive designs, soon applied the name of "Triumvirate"—the designation by which it has ever since been known. What the details of these designs were is not altogether certain. If the document that has come down to us, purporting to be an authoritative statement emanating from the original parties to the scheme, could be depended on as genuine, it would disclose to us an atrocious plot, not only against the Huguenots of France, but for the extirpation of Protestantism throughout the world. The sanguinary project was to be executed under the superintendence of his Catholic Majesty of Spain. The King of Navarre, the support of heresy in France, was first to be seduced by promises or terrified by threats. Should neither course prove successful, Philip was to raise an army in the most secret manner before winter. Should Antoine yield at once, he was to be expelled from the kingdom, with his wife and children. Should he attempt resistance, the Duke of Guise would declare himself the head of the Catholics, and, between him and Philip, the heretical King of Navarre would speedily be crushed. Then were all that had ever professed the reformed faith to be slain. Not one was to be spared. The entire race of the Bourbons was to be exterminated, lest an avenger or a resuscitator of Protestantism should arise from its descendants. The emperor and the Catholic princes of Germany would prevent the Protestants beyond the Rhine from sending succor to their French brethren. The Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland, with the assistance of the Pope, would engage the Protestant cantons. To the Duke of Savoy, supported by Philip and the Italian dukes, was intrusted the welcome task of destroying utterly the nest of heresy—Geneva. Here should the executioner revel in the blood of his victims. Not an inhabitant was to escape. All, without respect to age or sex, were to be slain with the sword or drowned in the lake, as an evidence that divine retribution had compensated for the delay by the severity of the punishment, causing the children to bear, as an example memorable to all time, the penalty of the wickedness of their fathers. The fruits of the French confiscations would be applied as a loan to the expenses of the crusade in Germany, where the united forces of France, the emperor, and the Catholic princes would subjugate the followers of Luther, as they had already exterminated the disciples of Calvin.

Such are the reported details of a plan almost too gross for belief. It is true that the existence of similar schemes—less extensive, perhaps, but equally sanguinary, and, in the light of history, not much less absurd—formed by the adherents of the papacy during the sixteenth century, is too well attested to admit of doubt. But the historical difficulties surrounding this document have never yet been satisfactorily explained, and the student of the Huguenot annals must still content himself with regarding it as a summary of reports current within the first two years of the reign of Charles the Ninth, respecting the secret designs of the Triumvirs, rather than as an authorized statement of their intentions.[1023]

[Sidenote: Massacres in holy week.]

While the intrigues of the Duchess of Valentinois and other bigots had been successful at court, the enemies of the Huguenots had not been idle in other parts of France. Fearful of the effect which the apparent union between Catharine and the King of Navarre might produce in accelerating the advance of the reformed doctrines, they resolved to stir up the zeal of the populace—that portion of the people that retained the strongest devotion for the traditional faith—in the country as well as in the capital.[1024] Holy week furnished opportunities that were eagerly embraced. Fanatical priests and monks wrought up the excitable mob to a frenzy.[1025] When their passions had reached a fervent heat, it was easy to bring on seditious explosions, the blame of which could be attached to the other party. "Few cities in the realm," says Abbe Bruslart in his journal, "escaped at this time riots and tumultuous scenes occasioned by the new religion."[1026] Amiens, Pontoise, and Paris itself were among the scenes of these disorders. Twenty cities witnessed the slaughter of Protestants by the infuriated rabble.[1027]

[Sidenote: The affair at Beauvais.]

The disturbance that attracted more attention than any other took place in the episcopal city of Beauvais—about forty miles north of Paris—on Easter Monday, the very next day after Montmorency, Guise, and St. Andre had been confirming their inauspicious compact at the sacred feast in honor of a risen Redeemer. The Bishop of Beauvais was the celebrated Cardinal Odet de Chatillon, long suspected of being at heart a convert to the reformed doctrines. More bold than he had formerly been, he now openly fostered their spread in his diocese.[1028] But even the personal popularity of the brother of Coligny and D'Andelot could not, in the present instance, secure immunity for the preachers who proclaimed the Gospel under his auspices. Incited by the priesthood, the people overleaped all the bounds within which they had hitherto contained themselves. The occasion was a rumor spread abroad that the Cardinal, instead of attending the public celebration of the mass in his cathedral church, had, with his domestics, participated in a private communion in his own palace, and that every communicant had, at the hands of the Abbe Bouteiller, received both elements, "after the fashion of Geneva." Hereupon the mob, gathering in great force, assailed a private house in which there lived a priest accused of teaching the children the doctrines of religion from the reformed catechisms. The unhappy Adrien Fourre—such was the schoolmaster's name—was killed; and the rabble, rendered more savage through their first taste of blood, dragged his corpse to the public square, where it was burned by the hands of the city hangman. Odet himself incurred no little risk of meeting a similar fate. But the strength of the episcopal palace, and the sight of their bishop clothed in his cardinal's costume, appeased the mob for the time; and before the morrow came, a goodly number of the neighboring nobles had rallied for his defence.[1029]

[Sidenote: Assault on the house of Longjumeau.]

If such riotous attacks followed the preaching of the ecclesiastics in the provinces, the demonstrations of hostility to the exercises of the Protestants could not be of a milder type in the midst of the turbulent populace of Paris, and within a stone's throw of the College de la Sorbonne. Toward the end of April information was received that the city residence of the Sieur de Longjumeau, situated on the Pre aux Clercs, was becoming a haunt of the Huguenots. It was not long before the rabble, with ranks recruited from the neighboring colleges, instituted an assault. But they met with a resistance upon which they had not counted. Forewarned of his danger, Longjumeau had gathered beneath his roof a number of friendly nobles, and laid in a good supply of arms. The undisciplined crowd fled before the well-directed fire of the defenders, and left several men dead and a larger number wounded on the field. Not satisfied with this victory by force of arms, Longjumeau resorted to parliament. But the court displayed its usual partiality for the Roman Catholic faith. While it abstained from justifying the assailants, and forbade the students from assembling in the neighborhood, it reiterated the adage that "there is nothing more incompatible than the co-existence of two different religions in the same state,"[1030] censured the nobleman's conduct, and ordered him forthwith to retire to his castle at Longjumeau.[1031]

[Sidenote: New and tolerant order.]

The only salvation of France lay in putting an end to such alarming exhibitions of discord, from the frequent recurrence of which it was to be feared that the country stood upon the verge of civil war. For this reason, Catharine de' Medici yielded to the persuasions of Chancellor L'Hospital, and, on the nineteenth of April, caused a royal letter to be addressed to all the judges, in which the practice of self-control and tolerance was enjoined. Insulting expressions based on differences of religion were strictly forbidden. The very use of the hateful epithets of "Papist" and "Huguenot" was proscribed. Far from offering a reward for denunciation, the king proclaimed it criminal to violate the sanctity of the home for the alleged purpose of ferreting out unlawful assemblages. He again ordered the release of all imprisoned for religion's sake, and extended an invitation to exiles to return to their homes, if they would live in a Catholic manner, granting them permission, if they were otherwise disposed, to sell their property and leave the kingdom.[1032]

[Sidenote: Opposition of the Parliament of Paris.]

It would have been not a little surprising if so tolerant an edict, even though it did little more than repeat the provisions of the last royal letters on the same subject (of the twenty-eighth of January), had been accepted without opposition by the Romish party.[1033] Still more strange if parliamentary jealousy had not taken umbrage at the neglect of immemorial usage, when the letter was sent to the lower courts before having received the honor of a formal registry at the hands of the Parisian judges. It is difficult to say which offence was most resented. Toleration, parliament remonstrated, was a tacit approval of a diversity of religion—a thing unheard of from Clovis's reign down to the present day. Kings and emperors—nay, even popes—had fallen into error and been proclaimed heretical or schismatic, but never had such calamity befallen a king of France. It were better for Charles to make open profession of his intention to live and die in his religion, and to enforce conformity on the part of his subjects, than to open the door wide to sedition by tolerating dissent. Better to renew the prohibition of heretical conventicles, and to reiterate the ancient penalties. Particularly ill-advised was it that Charles should be made to pronounce seditious those who applied the names "Papist" and "Huguenot" to their opponents, for it seemed to establish side by side two rival sects, although the name of the one was so novel as never to have found a place in any former missives of the crown.[1034]

[Sidenote: Popular cry for Protestant pastors.]

The refusal of the Parisian parliament to verify the edict in the customary manner prevented its universal observance; but, notwithstanding this untoward circumstance, it proved exceedingly favorable to the development of the Huguenot movement.[1035] Scarcely a month after its publication, Calvin, in a letter to which we have more than once had occasion to refer, expressed his astonishment at the ardor with which the French Protestants were pressing forward to still greater achievements. The cry from all parts of Charles the Ninth's dominions was for ministers of the Gospel.[1036] "The eagerness with which pastors are sought for on all hands from us is not less than that with which sacerdotal offices are wont to be solicited among the papists. Those who are in quest of them besiege my doors, as if I must be entreated after the fashion of the court; and vie with each other, as if the possession of Christ's kingdom were a quiet one. And, on our part, we desire to fulfil their earnest prayers to the extent of our ability; but we are thoroughly exhausted; nay, we have for some time been compelled to drag from the book-stores every workman that could be found possessed even of a slight tincture of literature and religious knowledge."[1037]

The letters that reached Calvin and his colleagues by every messenger from Southern France—many of which have recently come to light in the libraries of Paris and Geneva—present a vivid picture of the condition of whole districts and provinces. From Milhau comes the intelligence that the mass has for some time been banished from the place, but that a single pastor is by no means sufficient; he must have a colleague, that one minister may take exclusive care of the neighboring country, "where there is an infinite number of churches," while the other remains in the city. Everywhere there is an abundance of hot-headed persons who, by their breaking of crosses and images, and even plundering of churches, give the adversary an opportunity for calumniating. "May the Lord, of His goodness, be pleased to purge His church of them!"[1038]

[Sidenote: Moderation of the Huguenot ministers.]

In these most difficult circumstances—while, on the one hand, the demand for ministers was largely in excess of the supply, and, on the other, the folly of certain inconsiderate enthusiasts seemed likely to draw upon the great body of Protestants the unwarranted charge of disorder and insubordination to law—the Huguenot ministers fearlessly took a position that strikingly exhibits their excellent judgment, as well as their high moral principle. They declined to countenance a policy which offered, to say the least, bright temporary advantages. They refused to trust the vessel freighted with their best hopes for the future of France, to be carried into port on the treacherous waves of popular excitement. They preferred to abate somewhat of the proper demands which they might have exacted with success, that they might deprive their enemies of the slightest ground for maligning their loyalty to their native land and its legitimate king. When the Protestants of Montauban—a town then beginning to assume a religious character which it has never since lost—learned that they had been falsely accused of having revolted from the king, and of having elected a governor of their own, established a polity similar to that of the Swiss cantons, and coined money as an independent state, they not only refuted the charges to the satisfaction of the royal lieutenant sent to investigate the truth,[1039] but they discontinued the public celebration of the Lord's Supper, in order to avoid even the appearance of unwillingness to obey the king's commands. At the same time they wrote to Geneva an earnest request that, notwithstanding the need of teachers in France, no persons that had been monks or chaplains should be admitted to the ministry unless after long and careful scrutiny. They did more harm, they disquieted the churches more, they said, than the most violent persecutions that had befallen the Protestants. For they refused to submit to discipline, made light of the decisions of their brethren, and, while seeking only their own pleasure, drew odium upon the ministers who endeavored to uphold good order among the people.[1040]

[Sidenote: Inconsistent laws and practice.]

[Sidenote: Judicial perplexity.]

The position of the Huguenots was certainly anomalous, and presented the strangest inconsistencies. The royal letters enjoined that no inquiries should be made with the view of disturbing any one for religion's sake; the Parliament of Paris refused to register these letters and obey the provisions; the still more fanatical counsellors of the Parliament of Toulouse rather increased than diminished their severities, and daily consigned fresh victims to the flames.[1041] It was natural that the clergy should take advantage of these circumstances to renew their remonstrances against the continuance of the existing toleration. The Cardinal of Lorraine seized the opportunity afforded him by the solemn ceremonial of Charles's anointing at Rheims (on the thirteenth of June, 1561) to present to the queen mother the collective complaints of the prelates, because, so far from witnessing the rigid enforcement of the royal edicts, they beheld the heretical conventicles held with more and more publicity from day to day, and the judges excusing themselves from the performance of their duty by alleging the number of conflicting laws, in the midst of which their course was by no means easy. He therefore recommended the convocation of the parliament with the princes and members of the council, that, by their advice, some permanent and proper settlement of this vexed question might be reached.[1042] Catharine, who, in the publication of the letters-patent of April, had followed the advice of Chancellor L'Hospital, and seemed to lean to the side of toleration, now yielded to the cardinal's persuasions—whether from a belief that the mixed assembly which he proposed to convene would pursue the path of conciliation already pointed out by the government, or from a fear of alienating a powerful party in the state.

[Sidenote: The "Mercuriale" of 1561.]

On the twenty-third of June, Charles, accompanied by his mother, by the King of Navarre, and the other princes of the blood, and by the council of state, came to the chamber of parliament, and the chancellor announced to the assembled members the object of this extraordinary visit. It was to obtain advice not respecting religion itself—that was reserved for the deliberation of the national council, and its merits could not be discussed here—but respecting the best method of appeasing the commotions daily on the increase, caused by a diversity of religious tenets. He therefore begged all present to express in brief terms their opinions on this important topic. It is not surprising that the answers given should have been of the most varied import. Ever since the time of Henry the Second, the Parliament of Paris had contained a considerable number of friends, more or less open, of Protestantism, and among the princes and noblemen who came to join in the deliberation, the number of its warm advocates was proportionately still greater. At the same time, the Roman Catholic party was largely represented in the ranks of the members of the parliament proper, as recent events had indicated; while, among the high nobility and the dignitaries of the church, the weight of the constable and the Duke of Guise, the cardinals of Bourbon, Tournon, Lorraine, and Guise, and the Bishop of Paris, counterbalanced the influence of the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, the Chatillons, and the chancellor. Five or six different opinions were announced by the successive speakers;[1043] but they could all be reduced to three. The more tolerant advocated the suspension of all punishments until the determination of the questions in dispute by a council. A second class, on the contrary, maintained the propriety and expediency of enforcing the laws which made death the penalty of heretical belief. The rest—and they mustered in the end a majority of three[1044] over the advocates of toleration, while they were much more numerous than the champions of bloody persecution—advised the king to give to the ecclesiastical courts exclusive cognizance of heresy, according to the provisions of the Edict of Romorantin, and to forbid the holding of public or private conventicles, whether with or without arms, in which sermons should be preached or the sacraments administered otherwise than according to the customs of the Romish Church.[1045] Such was the result of the deliberations of the Mercuriale of June and July, 1561,[1046] in the course of which opinions had been freely expressed far more radical than those of Anne Du Bourg in the Mercuriale of 1559.

[Sidenote: The "Edict of July."]

[Sidenote: Disappointment at its severity.]

The edict for which the direction had been thus marked out was published on the eleventh of July, 1561.[1047] It has become celebrated in history as the "Edict of July." After reiterating the injunctions of previous royal letters, and forbidding all insults and breaches of the peace, on pain of the halter, Charles was made to prohibit "all enrollings, signatures, or other things tending to sedition." Preachers in the churches were strictly commanded to abstain from uttering words calculated to excite the popular passions or prejudice. The most important portion of the law, however, was that which punished, by confiscation of body and goods, all who attended, whether with or without arms, conventicles in which preaching was held or the holy sacraments administered. Of simple heresy the cognizance was still restricted, as by the edict of Romorantin in the previous year, to the church courts; but no higher penalty could be imposed on the guilty, when handed over to the secular arm, than banishment from the kingdom. The punishment of all offences in which public disorder or sedition was mingled with heresy, remained in the hands of the presidial judges.[1048] These were the leading features of this severe ordinance. It is true that the edict was expressly stated to be only provisional—to last no longer than until the Universal or National Council, whichever might be held—that pardon was offered to those who would live in a Catholic manner for the future, that calumny was threatened with exemplary punishment. Yet it was clear that the law was framed in the interest of the Roman Catholics, and in their interest alone. The Duke of Guise openly exulted. He exclaimed in the hearing of many, "that his sword would never rest in its scabbard when the execution of this decision was in question."[1049] The disappointment of the Protestants was not less extreme. At court, Admiral Coligny did not hesitate to declare that its provisions could never be executed.[1050] The farther they were removed from St. Germain, the more loudly the Huguenots murmured, the greater was their indisposition to submit to the harsh conditions imposed upon them. In Guyenne and Gascony, and in Languedoc, where whole towns were to be found containing scarcely one avowed partisan of the papacy, the discontent was open and threatening. How long did the bigots of Paris intend to keep their eyes closed and refuse to recognize the altered aspect of affairs? Until what future day was the simplest of rights—the right of the social and public worship of God—to be proscribed? Must the inhabitants of entire districts continue, month after month, and year after year, to stand in the eye of the law as culprits, with the halter around their necks, and beg mercy of a despised priesthood and a dissolute court, for the crime of assembling in the open field, in the school-houses, or even in the parish churches, where their fathers had worshipped before them, to listen to the preaching of God's word?

[Sidenote: Iconoclasm at Montauban.]

With the rising excitement the power of the ministers to control the ardor of their flocks steadily declined. How could the people be moderate, or even prudent, when their rights were so thoroughly ignored? The events of Montauban during August and the succeeding months, may serve to illustrate the growing impatience of the laity. Until now, as we have seen, the earnest warnings of their pastors had generally been successful in restraining the Huguenots from touching the symbols of a hated system so temptingly exhibited before their eyes. But, a few weeks after the unofficial intelligence of the enactment of the edict of July had reached the city, the work of destruction commenced. On the night of the fourteenth of August the Church of St. Jacques received the first bands of iconoclasts. The pictures and images were torn down or hurled from their niches and destroyed; but the chalices, the silver crosses, and other precious articles, were left untouched. The object was neither robbery nor plunder. A week later, the same fate befel the paintings in the church of the Augustinians. After another and a shorter interval, the chapels of St. Antoine, St. Michel, St. Roch, St. Barthelemi, and Notre Dame de Baquet, witnessed similar scenes of destruction. It was at this juncture that the edict of July was brought to Montauban and publicly proclaimed. Nothing could have been more inopportune. The raging fever of the popular pulse had been mistaken for a transient excitement, and the specific now administered, far from quenching the patient's burning thirst, only stimulated it to a more irrepressible craving. That very evening (Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of August), the people, irritated beyond endurance, gathered around the Dominican church. The monks, forewarned of their danger, had taken the precaution to fortify themselves. They now rang the tocsin, but no one came to their rescue, and the stronghold was speedily taken. The assailants, however, cherished no enmity toward God's image in human flesh and bones. So, after effectually destroying all man's efforts to represent the Divine likeness in stone or on canvas, the Huguenots proceeded to the Carmelite Church. Here rich trophies awaited them—a "Saint Suaire" and relics, which, on close inspection, were found to be the bones of horses instead of belonging to the saintly personages whose names they had borne. The reader will scarcely feel surprise to learn that the monks—with the single exception of the Franciscans—now judged that the time for them to leave the city had arrived.

Instructed by the somewhat suggestive example of the fate that had befallen their brethren, the black and white friars, and, doubtless considering discretion the better part of valor, the priests of the collegiate church of St. Stephen abandoned their preparations for defence, and, stipulating only for their own safety, gave up their paintings to be consigned to the flames. A bonfire was kindled on one of the public squares; and while the sacred pictures and images thrown upon it were being slowly consumed, bands of children looked on and chanted in chorus the metrical paraphrase of the ten commandments. The city being thus cleared of its public objects of superstitious devotion,[1051] the people next turned their attention to those of a more private character. As the crowds moved along the streets they earnestly appealed to the inmates of the houses to follow the noble example the churches had set them. We are informed by a contemporary record that the iconoclasts carefully abstained from trespassing, and confined themselves to an exhibition of those passages of Sacred Writ in which an idolatrous worship was prohibited. But, if the brief argumentation for which the rapidity of the transaction allowed time was not in all cases sufficient to produce entire conviction, it may be presumed that any remaining scruples were removed by the contagion of the popular enthusiasm. Montauban was purged of image-worship as in a day, and without the injury of man, woman, or child.[1052]

[Sidenote: The Edict cannot be executed.]

[Sidenote: Impatience with "public idols."]

Coligny was right. The Edict of July could not be carried into execution in those parts of France where, as in Montauban, the mass of the population had openly adopted Protestantism. If the resistance encountered was often accompanied by an earnestness that disdained to be trammelled by the customary forms of civil law, it was almost always exercised in accordance with the dictates of natural justice. If the people, emancipated from the service of images, believed themselves to possess an indisputable right to dash in pieces or burn the curiously wrought saints sculptured in marble or portrayed by the painter's pencil, this fact is less wonderful than that they scrupulously spared the lives of the priests and monks to whose pecuniary advantage their former worship had principally redounded. The plain Huguenot, like the plain Christian in the primitive age, was fully persuaded that he had an owner's title in the public idol, which not only justified him in destroying it when he had discovered its vanity, but rendered it his imperative duty to execute the natural impulse. As for the obligation of nine-tenths of the population to use the idol tenderly, because of any rightful claim of the remaining tithe, this was a consideration that scarcely occurred to them.

[Sidenote: Calvin endeavors to repress it.]

Nor were they very solicitous respecting the dangers that might arise from over-precipitancy. Not so with Calvin, from whose closely logical intellect the influence of a thorough training in the principles of French law had not been obliterated. Never was disapprobation more clearly expressed than in the reformer's letter to the church of Sauve—a small town in the Cevennes mountains, a score of miles from Nismes—where a Huguenot minister, in his inconsiderate zeal, had taken an active part in the "mad exploit" of burning images and overturning a cross. This conduct Calvin regarded as the more reprehensible in one "whose duty it was to moderate others and hold them in check." He denied that "God ever enjoined on any persons to destroy idols, save on every man in his own house, or in public on those placed in authority," and he demanded that this "fire-brand" should exhibit his title to be lord of the territory in which he had undertaken to exercise so distinct a function of royalty. "In thus speaking," he added, "we are not become the advocates of the idols. Would to God that idolatry might be exterminated, even at the cost of our lives! But since obedience is better than all sacrifice, we must look to what is lawful for us to do, and must keep within our bounds." "Have pity, very dear brethren," he wrote in conclusion, "on the poor churches, and do not wittingly expose them to butchery. Disavow this act, and openly declare to the people whom he has misled, that you have separated yourselves from him who was its chief author, and that, for his rebellion, you have cut him off from your communion."[1053] Calvin's advice was that of the whole body of Protestant divines in France and its neighborhood. Even an idolatrous worship must not be overturned by violent means.

[Sidenote: Re-assembling of the States at Pontoise.]

[Sidenote: Able harangue of the "Vierg" of Autun.]

The States General, after having been first summoned to meet at Melun on the first of May, and then prorogued, when it was found that some of the particular States had introduced the consideration of the public affairs of the kingdom, instead of devising means for the payment of the royal debt,[1054] finally met at Pontoise on the first of August. It does not come within the scope of this history to dwell at great length upon the proceedings of this important political assembly. The States were bold and decided in tone. It was only after finding that those who had a clear right to the regency were unwilling to assert it, that they consented, in deference to the request of Du Mortier, Admiral Coligny, and Antoine himself, to ratify the contract between Catharine de' Medici and the King of Navarre.[1055] Nearly four weeks were spent in the discussion of the subjects that were to be incorporated in the "cahiers," or bills of remonstrance to be presented to the king. It was at the solemn reception of the three orders in the great hall of the neighboring castle of St. Germain-en-Laye,[1056] on the twenty-seventh of August, that the "tiers etat" expressed with greatest distinctness its sentiments respecting the present condition of the realm. Jacques Bretagne, vierg[1057] of the city of Autun, a townsman of the clerical orator of the first of January, whose arrogance had inspired such universal disgust, was their spokesman. After reflecting with considerable severity upon the deficiency of the clergy in sound learning and spirituality—qualities for which they ought to be pre-eminently distinguished—he took an impressive survey of the excessive burdens of the people—burdens by which it had been reduced to such deep poverty as to be altogether unable to do anything to relieve the crown until it had obtained time to recruit its exhausted resources.[1058] He declared it to be utterly inconceivable how such enormous debts had been incurred, while the purses of the "third estate" had been drained by unheard-of subsidies. As he had before exhibited the obligations of the clergy by biblical example, so the orator next proved, by reference to the Holy Scriptures, that it was the duty of Charles to cause his subjects to be instructed by the preaching of God's word, as the surest foundation of his regal authority. Then, approaching the vexed question of toleration, he declared that never had monarch more reason to study the Word of Life than the youthful King of France amid the growing divisions and discords of his realm. The different opinions held by Charles's subjects, he said, arose only from their great solicitude for the salvation of their souls. Both parties were sincere in their profession of faith. Let persecution, therefore, cease. Let a free national council be convened, under the presidency of the king in person, and let sure access be given to it. In fine, let places be conceded to the advocates of the new doctrines for the worship of Almighty God in the open day, and in the presence of royal officers; for the voluntary service of the heart, which cannot be constrained, is alone acceptable to heaven. From such toleration, not sedition, but public tranquillity, must necessarily result. And lest the ordinary allegation of the necessary truth of the Papal Church, on account of its antiquity, should be employed to corroborate the existing system of persecution, the deputy of the people reminded the king and court that the same argument might be rendered effective in hardening Jews and Turks in their ancient unbelief. "We need not busy ourselves in examining the length of time, with a view to determining thereby the truth or falsity of any religion. Time is God's creature, subject to Himself, in such a manner that ten thousand years are not a minute in reference to the power of our God!"[1059]

[Sidenote: Written demands of the tiers etat.]

If the harangue of the orator of the third estate was alarming to the clergy, its written demands were little calculated to reassure them. For of several propositions made for the payment of the public debts from the ecclesiastical property, none were very satisfactory to the priests. According to one, all benefices were to be laid under contribution. The holders of the lowest in valuation were to give up one-fourth of their revenues; the holders of more valuable benefices a larger proportion; while the high dignitaries of the church were to be limited to a yearly stipend of six thousand livres for bishops, eight thousand for archbishops, and twelve thousand for cardinals. But the most obnoxious scheme was one proposing an innovation of a very radical character. The aggregate revenues of the temporalities of the Gallican Church were estimated at four million livres; the temporalities themselves were worth one hundred and twenty millions. It was gravely proposed to dispose of all this property by sale. Forty-eight millions might be reserved, which, if invested at the usual rate of one-twelfth, or eight and a-third per cent., would secure to the clergy the revenue they now enjoyed. Forty-two millions would be required to pay off the debts of the crown. The remaining thirty millions might be deposited with the chief cities of the kingdom, to be loaned out to foster the development of commerce; while the moderate interest thus obtained would suffice to fortify the frontiers and support the soldiery.[1060]

[Sidenote: Representative government demanded.]

The constitutional changes proposed by the formal cahier of the third estate were of an equally radical character. They looked to nothing short of a representative government, protected by suitable guarantees, and a complete religious liberty. On the one hand, the monarch was to be guided in the administration by a council of noblemen and learned and loyal subjects. Except in the case of princes of the blood, no two near relatives, as father and son, or two brothers, should sit at the same time in the council; while ecclesiastics of every grade were to be utterly excluded, both because they had taken an oath of fealty to the Pope, and because their very profession demanded a residence in their respective dioceses. On the other hand, the States General were to be convened at least once in two years, and no offensive war was to be undertaken, no new impost or tax to be raised, without consulting them. Happy would it have been for France, had its people obtained, by some such reasonable concessions as these, the inestimable advantage of regular representation in the government! At the price of a certain amount of political discussion, a bloody revolution might, perhaps, have been avoided.

In the matter of religion, the third estate recommended, first of all, the absolute cessation of persecution and the repeal of all intolerant legislation, even of the edict of July past; grounding the recommendation partly on the failure of all the rigorous laws hitherto enacted to accomplish their design, partly on the greater propriety and suitableness of milder measures. And they judiciously added, with a charitable discernment so rare in that age as to be almost startling: "The diversity of opinions entertained by the king's subjects proceeds from nothing else than the strong zeal and solicitude they have for the salvation of their souls."[1061] Strange that so sensible an observation should be immediately followed by a disclaimer of any intention to ask for pardon for seditious persons, libertines, anabaptists, and atheists, the enemies of God and of the public peace!

[Sidenote: An impartial national council.]

It was natural that, in accordance with these views, the third estate should call for the convocation of a national council to settle religious questions, to be presided over by the king himself, in which no one having an interest in retarding a reformation should sit, and where the word of God should be the sole guide in the decision of doubtful points. Meanwhile, the third estate proposed, that in every city a church or other place should be assigned for the worship of those who were now forced to hold their meetings by night because of their inability to join with a good conscience in the ceremonies of the "Romish Church"—for so the document somewhat curtly designated the establishment.[1062]

[Sidenote: The French prelates at Poissy.]

While the States General were occupied at Pontoise in considering the means of relieving the king's pecuniary embarrassments, Catharine had assembled at Poissy all the bishops of France to take into consideration the religious reformation which the times imperatively demanded. The Pope as yet delayed the long-promised oecumenical council, and there was little hope of obtaining its actual convocation on fair and practical terms unless, indeed, he should be frightened into it by the superior terrors of a French national council, which might throw France into the arms of the Reformation. Tired of the duplicity of the pontiff, alarmed by the rapid progress of religious dissensions at home, not unwilling, perhaps, to make an attempt at reconciliation, which, if successful, would confirm her own authority and remove the anxieties to which she was daily exposed—now from the side of the Guises, and again from that of the Huguenots—the queen mother had yielded to the suggestion frequently made to her, and had consented to a discussion between the French prelates and the most learned Protestant ministers.[1063]

[Sidenote: Invitation to all Frenchmen,]

[Sidenote: and particularly to Beza.]

[Sidenote: The couriers of Rome stripped.]

Accordingly, on the twenty-fifth of July an invitation had everywhere been extended by proclamation at the sound of the trumpet, to all Frenchmen who had any correction of religious affairs at heart, to appear with perfect safety and be heard before the approaching assembly at Poissy.[1064] Even before this public announcement, however, steps had been taken to secure the presence of the most distinguished orator among the reformed, and, next to Calvin, their most celebrated theologian. On the fourteenth of July, the Parisian pastors, and, on the succeeding days, the Prince of Conde, the Admiral, and the King of Navarre, had written to Theodore Beza, begging him to come and thus take advantage of the opportunity offered by the favorable disposition of the royal court.[1065] Similar invitations were sent to Pietro Vermigli—the celebrated reformer of Zurich, better known by the name of Peter Martyr—a native of Florence, now just sixty-one years of age, whose eloquence, it was hoped, might exercise a deep influence upon his countrywoman, the queen mother.[1066] So earnest, indeed, was the court in its desire to bring about the conference, that Catharine, well aware that, should tidings of the project reach the ears of the Pope, he would leave no stone unturned to frustrate her design, gave secret orders that all the couriers that left France for Rome about this time should be stripped of their despatches on the Italian borders! This daring step was actually executed by means of the governors of cities in Piedmont, who were devoted to her interests.[1067]

[Sidenote: French sincerity doubted.]

In spite of this flattering invitation, however, there was much in the condition of French affairs, especially in view of the edict of July just published, that made the two Swiss reformers and their colleagues hesitate before undertaking a mission which might possibly prove productive of less benefit than injury to the cause they had at heart. Well might they suspect the sincerity of a court from which so unfair an ordinance as that of July had but just emanated. What good results could flow from an interview for which the blood-stained persecutor of their brethren, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, professed his eagerness, promising himself and his friends an easy victory over the Huguenot orators?[1068]

[Sidenote: Urgency of Parisian Huguenots.]

The Protestants of Paris viewed the matter in a different light. So soon as they heard that Beza had concluded not to accede to their request, they wrote again, on the tenth of August. In this letter they begged him, although it was already so late that they had little hope of his being able to reach Poissy in time to take part in the opening of the colloquy, at least to change his mind, and to set out as soon, and travel as expeditiously as possible, in order to succor those who had, in his absence, entered upon the contest. Already, seeing little eagerness on the part of the Protestants, their adversaries had begun to boast of victory. The common cry at Paris, even, was that the Protestants would not dare to maintain their errors "before so good a company." If the prelates should be allowed to adjourn without advantage being taken of the opportunity accorded the reformers of defending their faith, the nobles would be too much disgusted to interfere in their behalf a second time; and the queen had distinctly said that, in that case, she would never be able to believe that they had any right on their side. "As to the edict," they added, "which has induced you to adopt this resolution, although it is very bad, yet it can place you in no danger; for by it there is nothing condemned excepting the 'assemblies;' and as to simple heresy, as they call it, it can at most be punished only by banishment from the kingdom, without other loss. Moreover, we know with certainty that this edict was made for the sole purpose of contenting King Philip and the Pope, and drawing some money from the ecclesiastics. These ends are bad, but it seems to us that there is nothing in all this that ought to prevent our appearing for the maintenance of the truth of God, since it has pleased Him to give us the opportunity of coming forward and being heard, as we have so long desired."[1069] Two days later Antoine of Navarre added his solicitations in an earnest letter to the "Magnificent Seigniors, the Syndics and Council of the Seigniory of Geneva."[1070]

[Sidenote: Beza comes to St. Germain.]

That it was no personal fear which had occasioned Beza's delay was soon proved. Antoine had written on the twelfth of August; on the sixteenth, without waiting for a safe-conduct, the reformer was already on his way to St. Germain, acting upon the principle laid down by Calvin: "If it be not yet God's pleasure to open a door, it is our duty to creep in at the windows, or to penetrate through the smallest crevices, rather than allow the opportunity of effecting a happy arrangement to escape us."[1071] So expeditious, in fact, was Beza, that on the twenty-second of August he was in Paris.[1072] The next day he reached the royal court at St. Germain.

[Sidenote: Beza's previous history.]

The theologian whose advent had been so anxiously awaited was a French exile for religion's sake. Born, on the twenty-fourth of June, 1519, of noble parents, in the small but famous Burgundian city of Vezelay, none of the reformers sacrificed more flattering prospects than did Theodore Beza when he cast in his lot with the persecuted Protestants. At Bourges he had been a pupil of Wolmar, until that eminent teacher was recalled to Germany. At Orleans he had been admitted a licentiate in law when scarcely twenty years old. At Paris he gave to the world a volume of Latin poetry of no mean merit, which secured the author great applause. The "Juvenilia" were neither more nor less pagan in tone than the rest of the amatory literature of the age framed on the model of the classics. That they were immoral seems never to have been suspected until Beza became a Protestant, and it was desirable to find means to sully his reputation. The discovery of the hidden depths of iniquity in the reformer's youthful productions it was reserved for the same prurient imaginations to make that afterward fancied that they had detected obscene allusions in the most innocent lines of the Huguenot psalter. At the age of forty-two years, Beza, after having successively discharged with great ability the functions of professor of Greek in the Academie of Lausanne, and of professor of theology in that of Geneva, was, next to Calvin, the most distinguished Protestant teacher of French origin. He was a man of commanding presence, of extensive erudition, of quick and ready wit, of elegant manners and bearing. No better selection could have been made by the Huguenots of a champion to represent them at the court of Charles the Ninth.[1073]

[Sidenote: Wrangling of the prelates.]

Meantime the prelates had been in session more than three weeks. But little good had thus far come of their deliberations. In vain, had the king delivered before them a speech in which he incited them "to provide such good means that the people might be induced to live in concord, and in obedience to the Catholic Church." In vain had he assured them that he would not give them permission to separate until they had made a satisfactory settlement of the religious affairs of the kingdom.[1074] The prelates much preferred to fritter away their time in the discussion of petty details of ecclesiastical order and discipline—in regulating the number of priests, settling the dignity of cathedral churches, prescribing the duties of bishops, and other matters of equal importance—"fancying that, in answering such questions, they were applying an efficacious remedy to the ills that desolated the church in these times of troubles and divisions."[1075] In the words of a minister of state, writing to a French ambassador on the very day of Beza's arrival at court, they intended to treat of the reformation of manners alone, "without coming to the point of doctrine, which they had as lief touch as handle fire."[1076]

[Sidenote: Cardinal Chatillon's communion.]

The doubtful allegiance of some of their own number to the Romish Church was a source of peculiar vexation. As the prelates were about to join in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Cardinal Chatillon and two other bishops insisted upon communicating under both forms; and when their demand was refused, they went to another church and celebrated the divine ordinance with many of the nobility, all partaking both of the bread and of the wine, thus earning for themselves the nickname of Protestants.[1077]

[Sidenote: Determination of Catharine and L'Hospital.]

What with the disinclination of the bishops to enter into the consideration of the real difficulties that beset the kingdom, and the open hostility of the Pope and of Philip the Second[1078] to any assembly that bore the least resemblance to a national council, Catharine and her principal adviser, the chancellor, had an arduous and well-nigh hopeless task. They strove to quiet the King of Spain and the Pope by the assurance that the prelates had only been assembled in order to prepare them to go in a body to attend the universal council soon to be convened. "Those who are dangerously ill," wrote Catharine in her defence, "may be excused for applying all herbs to their ache, in order to alleviate it when it becomes insupportable. Meanwhile they send for the good physician—whom I take to be a good council—to cure so furious and dangerous a disease." Only those who feel the suffering, she intimated, can talk understandingly with respect to its treatment.[1079]

[Sidenote: A remarkable letter to the Pope.]

[Sidenote: Effect produced at Rome.]

Catharine was not, however, satisfied with this general apology; she even undertook to express to the pontifical court her idea of some of the reforms which were dictated by the times.[1080] On the fourth of August—nearly three weeks before Beza's arrival—she wrote a letter to Pius the Fourth of so radical a character that its authenticity has been called into question, although without sufficient reason. After acquainting the Pope with the extraordinary increase in the number of those who had forsaken the Roman Church, and with the impossibility of restoring unity by means of coercion, she declared it a special mark of divine favor that there were among the dissidents neither Anabaptists nor Libertines, for all held the creed as explained by the early councils of the Church. It was, consequently, the conviction of many pious persons that, by the concession of some points of practice, the present divisions might be healed. But more frequent and peaceful conferences must be held, the ministers of religion must preach concord and charity to their flocks, and the scruples of those who still remained in the pale of the Church must be removed by the abolition of all unnecessary and objectionable practices. Images, forbidden by God and disapproved of by the Fathers, ought at once to be banished from public worship, baptism to be stripped of its exorcisms, communion in both forms to be restored, the vernacular tongue to be employed in the services of the church, private masses to be discountenanced. Such were the abuses which it seemed proper to correct, while leaving the papal authority undiminished, and the doctrines of the Church unaffected by innovations.[1081] To such a length was a woman—herself devoid of strong convictions, and possessing otherwise little sympathy with the belief or the practice of the reformers—carried by the force of the current by which she was surrounded. But, whether the letter was dictated by L'Hospital, or inspired by Bishop Montluc—at this time suspected of being more than half a Huguenot at heart—the fact that a production openly condemning the Roman Catholic traditional usages on more than one point should have emanated from the pen of Catharine de' Medici, is certainly somewhat remarkable. At Rome the letter produced a deep impression. If the Pope did not at once give utterance to his serious apprehensions, he was at least confirmed in his resolution to redeem his pledge in respect to a universal council, and he must have congratulated himself on having already despatched an able negotiator to the French court, in the person of the Cardinal of Ferrara, a legate whose intrigues will occupy us again presently.[1082]

[Sidenote: Beza's flattering reception.]

Despite Pope and prelates, Beza met with the most flattering reception. He was welcomed upon his arrival by the principal statesmen of the kingdom. L'Hospital showed his eagerness to obtain the credit of having introduced him. Coligny, the King of Navarre, and the Prince of Conde betrayed their joy at his coming. The Cardinals of Bourbon and Chatillon shook hands with him. Indeed, the contrast between Bourbon's present cordiality and his coldness a year before at Nerac, provoked Beza to make the playful remark that "he had not undergone any change since the cardinal had refused to speak to him through fear of being excommunicated."[1083] Afterward, attended by a numerous escort,[1084] the reformer was conducted to the quarters of the Prince of Conde, where the princess and Madame de Coligny showed themselves "marvellously well disposed." On the morrow, which was Sunday, Beza preached in the prince's apartments before a large and honorable audience. Conde himself, however, was absent, engaged in making that unfortunate St. Bartholomew's Day reconciliation with the Duke of Guise, of which mention has already been made.[1085] Certainly neither Beza nor the other reformers could complain of the greeting extended to them. "They received a more cordial welcome than would have awaited the Pope of Rome, had he come to the French court," remarks a contemporary curate with a spice of bitterness.[1086]