[Sidenote: Beza meets Cardinal Lorraine.]

[Sidenote: The cardinal professes to be satisfied.]

[Sidenote: A witty woman's caution.]

That very evening Beza and Lorraine crossed swords for the first time in the apartments of Navarre.[1087] The former, coming by invitation, was much surprised to find there before him not only Antoine and his brothers, but Catharine de' Medici and Cardinal Lorraine, neither of whom had he previously met. Without losing his self-possession, however, he briefly adverted to the occasion of his coming, and the queen mother in return graciously expressed the joy she would experience should his advent conduce to the peace and quietness of the realm. Hereupon the cardinal took part in the conversation, and said that he hoped Beza might be as zealous in allaying the troubles of France as he had been successful in fomenting discord—a remark which Beza did not let pass unchallenged, for he declared that he neither had distracted nor intended to distract his native land. From inquiries respecting Beza's great master, Calvin, his age and health, the discourse turned to certain obnoxious expressions which Lorraine attributed to Beza himself; but the latter entirely disclaimed being their author, much to the confusion of the cardinal, who had expected to create a strong prejudice against his opponent in the minds of the by-standers. The greater part of the evening, however, was consumed in a discussion respecting the real presence. Beza, while denying that the sacramental bread and wine were transmuted into the body and blood of Christ, was willing to admit, according to Calvin's views and his own, "that the bread is sacramentally Christ's body—that is, that although that body is now in heaven alone, while we have the signs with us on earth, yet the very body of Christ is as truly given to us and received by faith, and that to our eternal life, on account of God's promise, as the sign is in a natural manner placed in our hands."[1088] The statement was certainly far enough removed from the theory of the Romish Church to have consigned its author to the flames, had the theologians of the Sorbonne been his judges. But it satisfied the cardinal,[1089] who confessed that he was little at home in a discussion foreign to his ordinary studies—a fact quite sufficiently apparent from his confused statements[1090]—and did not attempt to conceal the little account which he made of the dogma of transubstantiation.[1091] "See then, madam," said Beza, "what are those sacramentarians, who have been so long persecuted and overwhelmed with all kinds of calumnies." "Do you hear, cardinal?" said the queen to Lorraine. "He says that the sacramentarians hold no other opinion than that to which you have assented."[1092] With this satisfactory conclusion the discussion, which had lasted a couple of hours,[1093] was concluded. The queen mother left greatly pleased with the substantial agreement which the two champions of opposite creeds had attained in their first interview, and flattering herself that greater results might attend the public conferences. The cardinal, too, professed high esteem for Beza, and said to him, as he was going away: "I adjure you to confer with me; you will not find me so black as I am painted."[1094] Beza might have been pardoned, had he permitted the cardinal's professions somewhat to shake his convictions of the man's true character. He was, however, placed on his guard by the pointed words of a witty woman. Madame de Crussol, who had listened to the entire conversation, as she shook the cardinal's hand at the close of the evening, significantly said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all: "Good man for to-night; but to-morrow—what?"[1095] The covert prediction was soon fulfilled. The very next day the cardinal was industriously circulating the story that Beza had been vanquished in their first encounter.[1096]

[Sidenote: A Huguenot petition.]

[Sidenote: Vexatious delay.]

[Sidenote: The petition informally granted.]

The Protestant ministers, assembled at St. Germain about ten days before Beza's arrival,[1097] had, with wise forethought, presented to the king a petition embracing four points of prime importance.[1098] They guarded against an unfair treatment of the cause they had come to maintain, by demanding that their opponents, the prelates, should not be permitted to constitute themselves their judges, that the king and his council should preside in the conferences, and that the controversy should be decided by reference to the Word of God. Moreover, lest the incidents of the discussion should be perverted, and each party should so much the more confidently arrogate to itself the credit of victory as the claim was more difficult of refutation, they insisted on the propriety of appointing, by common consent of the two parties, clerks whose duty it would be to take down in writing an accurate account of the entire proceedings. To so reasonable a petition the court felt compelled to return a gracious reply. The requests could not, however, be definitely granted, the ministers were told, without first consulting the prelates, and gaining, if possible, their consent.[1099] This was no easy matter. Many of the doctors of Poissy, and even some members of the council, maintained that with condemned heretics, such as the Huguenots had long been, it was wrong to hold any sort of discussion.[1100] Day after day passed, but the attainment of the object for which the ministers had come seemed no nearer than when they left their distant homes. They were not yet permitted to appear before the king and vindicate the confession of faith which they had, several months before, declared themselves prepared to maintain.[1101] Meantime it was notorious that their enemies were ceaselessly plotting to arrange every detail of the conference—if, indeed, it must be held—in a manner so unfavorable to the reformers, that they might rather appear to be culprits brought up for trial and sentence, before a court composed of Romish prelates, than as the advocates of a purer faith.[1102] At length, weary of the protracted delay, the Protestant ministers presented themselves before Catharine de' Medici, on the eighth of September, and demanded the impartial hearing to which they were entitled; and they plainly announced their intention to depart at once, unless they should receive satisfactory assurances that they would be shielded from the malice of their enemies.[1103] It was well for the Protestants that they exhibited such decision. Catharine, who always deferred a definite decision on important matters until the last moment—a habit not unfrequently leading to the hurried adoption of the means least calculated to effect her selfish ends—was constrained to yield a portion of their demands. In the presence of the Protestants an informal decree was passed, with the consent of Navarre, Conde, Coligny, and the chancellor[1104]—those members of the council who happened to be in the audience chamber—that the bishops should not be made judges; that to one of the secretaries of state should be assigned the duty of writing out the minutes of the conference, but that the Protestants should retain the right of appending such notes as they might deem proper. The king would be present at the discussions, together with the princes of the blood. But Catharine peremptorily declined to grant a formal decree according these points. This, she said, would only be to furnish the opposite party with a plausible pretext for refusing to enter into the colloquy.[1105] Meanwhile she urged them to maintain a modest demeanor, and to seek only the glory of God, which she professed to believe that they had greatly at heart.[1106]

[Sidenote: Last efforts of the Sorbonne to prevent the colloquy.]

The Romish party, however, was unwilling to approach the distasteful conference without a final attempt to dissuade the queen from so perilous an undertaking. As the Protestants left Catharine's apartments, a deputation of doctors of the Sorbonne entered the door. They came to beg her not to grant a hearing to heretics already so often condemned. If this request could not be accorded, they suggested that at least the tender ears of the king should be spared exposure to a dangerous infection. But Catharine was too far committed to listen to their petition. She was resolved that the colloquy should be held, and held in the king's presence.[1107]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 968: Evidently the Guises had acquiesced with so much alacrity in the convocation of the States General only because of their confidence in their power to intimidate any party that should undertake to oppose them. Chantonnay, the Spanish ambassador, informed Philip of this before Francis's death, and gave the Cardinal of Lorraine as his authority for the statement: "Le ha dicho el cardenal de Lorrena que para aquel tiempo avria aqui tanta gente de guerra y se daria tal orden que a qualquiera que quiziesse hablar se le cerrasse la boca, y assi ne se hiziesse mas dello que ellos quiziessen." Simancas MSS., apud Mignet, Journal des savants, 1859, p. 40.]

[Footnote 969: Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 18.]

[Footnote 970: From Nov. 20th to Dec. 1st, De la Place, 77, 78.]

[Footnote 971: La Planche, 418.]

[Footnote 972: "Si possible estoit," wrote Calvin, "il seroit bon de leur faire veiller le corps da trespasse, comme ils out faict jouer ce rosle aux aultres." Letter to ministers of Paris, Lettres franchises, ii. 347.]

[Footnote 973: "Lutherano more sepultus Lutheranorum hostis." Letter of Beza to Bullinger, ubi supra, p. 19. "Dont advint un brocard: que le roy, ennemy mortel des huguenauds, n'avoit pen empescher d'estre enterre a la huguenaute." La Planche, 421.]

[Footnote 974: De la Place, 76.]

[Footnote 975: "De consentir que une femme veuve, une estrangere et Italienne domine, non-seulement il luy tourneroit a grand deshonneur, mais a un tel prejudice de la couronne, qu'il en seroit blasme a jamais." Calvin to the ministers of Paris, Lettres fr., ii. 346.]

[Footnote 976: Commentarii del regno di Francia, probably written early in 1562, in Tommaseo, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 552-554.]

[Footnote 977: Calvin, who read his contemporaries thoroughly, wrote to Bullinger (May 24, 1561): "Rex Navarrae non minus segnis aut flexibilis quam hactenus liberalis est promissor; nulla fides, nulla constantia, etsi enim videtur interdum non modo viriles igniculos jacere, sed luculentam flammam spargere, mox evanescit. Hoc quando subinde accidit non aliter est metuendus quam praevaricator forensis. Adde quod totus est venereus," etc. Baum, vol. ii., App., 32.]

[Footnote 978: Letter of Francis Hotman, Strasbourg, December 31, 1560, to the King of Navarre, Bulletin, ix. (1860) 32.]

[Footnote 979: "En quoy il fault que je vous dye que le roy de Navarre, qui est le premier, et auquel les lois du royaume donnent beaucoup d'avantage, s'est si doulcement et franchement porte a mon endroict, que j'ay grande occasion de m'en contenter, s'estant du tout mis entre mes mains et despouille du pouvoir et d'auctorite soubz mon bon plaisir.... Je l'ay tellement gaigne, que je fais et dispose de luy tout ainsy qu'il me plaist." Letter of Catharine to the Bishop of Limoges, December 19, 1560, ap. Negociations relat. au regne de Fr. II., p. 786, 787.]

[Footnote 980: "Encore que je souy contraynte d'avoyr le roy de Navarre aupres de moy, d'aultent que le louys de set royaume le portet ynsin, quant le roy ayst en bas ayage, que les prinse du sanc souyt aupres de la mere; si ne fault-y qu'il entre en neule doulte, car y m'e si aubeysant et n'a neul comendement que seluy que je luy permes." The fact that this letter was written by Catharine's own hand well accounts for the spelling. Negociations, etc., 791.]

[Footnote 981: Memoires de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 2. In July, 1561, the salaries of the officers of the Parliament of Paris were in arrears for nearly a year and a half. Memoires de Conde (Edit. Michaud et Poujoulat), 579.]

[Footnote 982: "Che certo non puo piu." Relaz. di Giovanne Michele, ap. Tommaseo, Relations des Amb. Ven., i. 408.]

[Footnote 983: And yet—such are the inconsistencies of human character—this queen, whose nature was a singular compound of timidity, hypocrisy, licentiousness, malice, superstition, and atheism, would seem at times to have felt the need of the assistance of a higher power. If Catharine was not dissembling even in her most confidential letters to her daughter, it was in some such frame of mind that she recommended Isabella to pray to God for protection against the misfortunes that had befallen her mother. The letter is so interesting that I must lay the most characteristic passage under the reader's eye. The date is unfortunately lost. It was written soon after Charles's accession: "Pour se, ma fille, m'amye, recommende-vous bien a Dyeu, car vous m'aves veue ausi contente come vous, ne pensent jeames avoyr aultre tryboulatyon que de n'estre ases aymaye a mon gre du roy vostre pere, qui m'onoret pluls que je ne merites, mes je l'ayme tant que je aves tousjour peur, come vous saves fayrement ases: et Dyeu me l'a haulte, et ne se contente de sela, m'a haulte vostre frere que je ayme come vous saves, et m'a laysee aveque troys enfans petys, et en heun reaume (un royaume) tout dyvyse, n'y ayent heum seul a qui je me puise du tout fyer, qui n'aye quelque pasion partycoulyere." God alone, she goes on to say, can maintain her happiness, etc. Negociations, etc., 781, 782.]

[Footnote 984: "C'est folie d'esperer paix, repos et amitie entre les personnes qui sont de diverses religions.... Deux Francois et Anglois qui sont d'une mesme religion, ont plus d'affection et d'amitie entre eux que deux citoyens d'une mesme ville, subjects a un mesme seigneur, qui seroyent de diverses religions." La Place, p. 85; Histoire eccles., i. 264.]

[Footnote 985: Yet the Huguenots, more enlightened than the chancellor, while not renouncing the notion that the civil magistrate is bound to maintain the true religion, justly censured L'Hospital's statements as refuted by the experience of the greater part of the world. "Disaient davantage, qu'a la verite, puisqu'il n'y a qu'une vraye religion a laquelle tous, petite et grands, doivent viser, le magistrat doit sur toutes choses pourvoir a ce qu'elle seule soit avouee et gardee aux pays de sa sujettion; mais ils niaient que de la il fallut conclure qu'amitie aucune ni paix ne put etre entre sujets de diverses religions, se pouvant verifier le contraire tant par raisons peremptoires, que par experience du temps passe et present en la plupart du monde." Histoire eccles., i. 268.]

[Footnote 986: "Ostons ces mots diaboliques, noms de parts, factions et seditions; lutheriens, huguenauds, papistes; ne changeons le nom de chrestien." La Place, p. 87.]

[Footnote 987: The chancellor's address is given in extenso in Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et republique pp. 80-88; and in the Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i. 257-268. De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 3-7. "Habuit longam orationem Cancellarius," says Beza, "in qua initio quidem pulchre multa de antiquo regni statu disseruit, sed mox aulicum suum ingenium prodidit." Letter to Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. App., 19. Prof. Baum has shown (vol. ii., p. 159, note) that this last assertion is fully borne out by portions of the speech, even when viewed quite independently of the impatience naturally felt by a Huguenot when an enlightened statesman undertook to sail a middle course where justice was so evidently on one side. I refer, for instance, to that extraordinary passage in which L'Hospital speaks of the treatment to which the Protestants had hitherto been subjected as so gentle, "qu'il semble plus correction paternelle que punition. Il n'y a eu ni portes forcees, ny murailles de villes abbattues, ni maisons bruslees, ny privileges ostes aux villes, commes les princes voisins ont faict de nostre temps en pareils troubles et seditions." La Place, ubi supra, p. 87. See other points specified in Histoire eccles., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 988: La Place, 88.]

[Footnote 989: Ib., 79; Hist. eccles., i. 269, 270; Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, ubi supra: "quam ipsius audaciam cum nobilitas et plebs magno cum fremitu repulisset, indignatus ille ne suae quidem Ecclesiae patrocinium suscipere voluit."]

[Footnote 990: This was on the 1st day of Jan., 1561: "Habuerunt hi singuli suas orationes publice, sedente rege et delecto ipsius concilio, Calendis Januarii." Letter of Beza, ubi supra, p. 20.]

[Footnote 991: All previous legislation appears to have proved fruitless. "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." It was all in vain to endeavor to confine the gay and aspiring ecclesiastics to the provinces, so long as promotion was only to be found at Paris and worldly pleasures in the large cities. An edict of 1557, enjoining residence, Haton tells us, had little effect. It was obeyed only by the poorest and most obscure of the curates, and by them only for a short time. The great were not able to observe it, if they would. How could they? They could not have told on which benefice to reside, for they held many. "Ung homme seul tenoit un archevesche, un evesche et trois abbayes tout ensemble; ung aultre deux ou trois cures, avec aultant de prieurez, le tout par permission et dispense du pape.... Et pour ce ne scavoient auquel desditz benefices ilz debvoient resider." Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 91.]

[Footnote 992: La Place, Commentaries, 89-93; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 8-10, Hist. eccles., i. 277-279.]

[Footnote 993: La Place, Commentaires, 89; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 8-10; Hist. eccles., i. 277, 279. None of these authors give more than a very imperfect sketch of L'Ange's harangue. Beza, in the letter more than once referred to above, says: "Nobilitatem ferunt valde fortiter et libere locutam, sed plebs imprimis graviter et copiose disseruit de rerum omnium perturbatione, de intolerabili quorundam potentia, etc.... adeo ut omnes audientes valde permoverit." Baum, Theod. Beza, ii., App., 20, 21.]

[Footnote 994: "Quasi noyes de telles trop frequentes inondations des infectees lagunes de Geneve." The mention of the heretical capital requires an apology on the part of our pious orator, and he adds in Latin, after the fashion of other parts of his mongrel address: "Desplicet aures vestras et os meum foedasse vocabulo tam probroso, sed ex ecclesiarum praescripto cogor." La Place, 101.]

[Footnote 995: "Encores, Sire, vous supplierons-nous tres-humblement pour ce tant bon et tant obeissant peuple francois, duquel Dieu (vostre pere et le leur aussi) vous a faict seigneur et roy; prenez en pitie, sire, et soublevez un peu les charges que des long temps ils portent patiemment. Pour Dieu, sire, ne permettez que ce tiers pied de vostre throne soit aucunement foule, meurtry ny brise." La Place, 108.]

[Footnote 996: Quintin's speech is given in full by La Place, 93-109; Hist. eccles., i. 270-274; De Thou, iii., liv. xxvii., 11, etc. Letter of Beza to Bullinger, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 997: "Son discours, qu'il lut presque tout entier, fut long et ennuyeux.... rempli de lonanges fades, et de flatteries outrees, fit rougir, et ennuya les assistans." De Thou, iii. 11, 12. Quintin's address drew forth from the Protestants a written reply, directed to the queen, exposing his "ignorance, calumnies, and malicious omissions." It is inserted in Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 275-277.]

[Footnote 998: La Place, 109, 112; De Thou, iii. 12, 14; Hist. eccl., i. 280.]

[Footnote 999: Beza, Letter to Bullinger, Geneva, Jan. 22, 1561; Baum, Th. Beza, ii., App., 21, 22; Calvin to Ministers of Paris, Lettres franc., ii. 348.]

[Footnote 1000: "Hanc supplicationem, scribitur ad nos, Regina ex Amyraldi manu acceptam promisisse se Concilio exhibituram, et magna omnium spes est nobis omnia haec concessum iri, modo privatis locis et sine tumultu pauci simul conveniant.... Ita brevi futurum spero ut Gallia tandem Regem et nomine et re christianissimum habeat." Beza, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1001: Catharine's fears that the States would enter upon the discussion of matters affecting her regency undoubtedly had much to do with this action (Hist. eccles. des eglises ref., i. 280: "qu'on craignoit vouloir passer plus outre en d'autres affaires qu'on ne vouloit remuer"). Ostensibly in order to avoid confusion and expense, each of the thirteen principal provinces was to depute only two delegates to Pontoise.]

[Footnote 1002: Letter of Charles IX., Jan. 28, 1561, Memoires de Conde, ii. 268.]

[Footnote 1003: March 1st, "puysque la volunte du Roy est," Mem. de Conde, ii. 273. When the secretary of state, Bourdin, brought to parliament the mandates of Charles and Catharine from Fontainebleau, of Feb. 13th and 14th, ordering its registry, he stated that Charles had granted this document "at the urgent prayer of the three estates, and in order to obviate and provide against troubles and divisions, while waiting for the decision of the General Council granted by the Pope." On the 22d of February a new missive of the king was received in parliament, enjoining the publication of the letter of January 28th, with the modification that any of the liberated prisoners that would not consent to live in a Catholic fashion must leave the kingdom under pain of the halter. Mem. de Conde, ii. 271, 272.]

[Footnote 1004: Calvin, Memoire aux eglises ref. de France, Dec., 1560, Lettres franc. (Bonnet), ii. 350.]

[Footnote 1005: Letter of Calvin to brethren of Paris, Feb. 26, 1561, ap. Baum, ii., App., 26; Bonnet, Lettres fr. de Calvin, ii. 378, etc.]

[Footnote 1006: "E benche la piu parte fossero ignoranti, e predicasse mille pazzie, pero ogn'uno aveva il suo seguito." Michel Suriano, Commentarii del regno di Francia, Relations des Amb. Ven. (Tommaseo), i. 532. M. Tommaseo supposes this relation to belong to 1561, and mentions the somewhat remarkable opinion of others that it was somewhere between 1564 and 1568. The document itself gives the most decided indications that it was written in the early part of 1562, before the outbreak of the first civil war—indeed, before the return of the Guises to court. After stating that Charles IX. when he ascended the throne was ten years old (page 542), the author says that he is now eleven and a half. The proximate date would, therefore, seem to be January or February, 1562. Throkmorton wrote to the queen, Paris, Nov. 14, 1561, that "the Venetians had sent Marc Antonio Barbaro to reside there, in the place of Sig. Michaeli Soriano." State Paper Office MSS.]

[Footnote 1007: Gaberel, Histoire de l'eglise de Geneve, i., pieces just., p. 201-203, from the Archives of Geneva; Soulier, Histoire des edits de pacification (Paris, 1682), 22-25.]

[Footnote 1008: Gaberel, Hist. de l'eglise de Geneve, i. (pieces justif.), 203-206. He gives the deliberation of the council, as well as the reply. Lettres franc. de Calvin, ii. 373-378. It needs scarcely to be noticed that the "Sieur Soulier, pretre," while he parades the royal letter as a convincing proof of the seditious character of the Huguenot ministers, does not deign even to allude to the satisfactory reply. No wonder; so apposite a refutation would have been sadly out of place in a book written expressly to justify the successive steps of the violation of the solemn compacts between the French crown and the Protestants—to prepare the way, in fact, for the formal revocation of the edict of Nantes (three years later) toward which the priests were fast hurrying Louis XIV.]

[Footnote 1009: La Place, Commentaires, 120; Sommaire recit de la calomnieuse accusation de Monsieur le prince de Conde, avec l'arrest de la cour contenant la declaration de son innocence, in the Mem. de Conde, ii. 383; De Thou, iii. 38.]

[Footnote 1010: The arret of parliament of June 13th is given in Histoire eccles., i. 291-293; Sommaire recit de la calomnieuse accusation de Monsieur le prince de Conde, iii. 391-394. See also La Place, 128-130; De Thou, iii. 50, 51; Journal de Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 39, 40.]

[Footnote 1011: Strange to say, the editor of the Memoires de Conde in the Collection Michaud-Poujoulat expresses his disbelief of this occurrence; but not only are the historians explicit, but an official statement was drawn up and signed by the secretaries of state, under Charles's orders. This notarial document is inserted in La Place, 139, 140, and in the Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 296, 297; De Thou, iii. 56, gives the wrong date, Aug. 28th. Beza had from the lips of Conde, that very afternoon, an account, which he transmitted the next day to Calvin. Letter of Aug. 25th, apud Baum, iii., App., 47.]

[Footnote 1012: La Place, 121; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 40; Mem. de Conde, ii. 24, 25.]

[Footnote 1013: La Place, 121, 122; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 40, 41.]

[Footnote 1014: Letter of Beza to Wolf, March 25, 1561, ap. Baum, ii., App., 30, 31; The Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, under May, 1561 (p. 43), has this entry: "Artus Desire fist amende honorable, tout nud, la torche au poing, dedans le palais, en ung jeudy, 14^e du mois, et fut condamne a rester dedans les Chartreux cinq ans au pain et a l'eau: il y fut quatre moys; les ungs disent qu'il s'en fut, les aultres que les Chartreux le firent sortir, craignant les huguenots. Depuis il ne se cacha pas, et se promenoit a Paris."]

[Footnote 1015: "Ou il n'a rien entendu qui ne fust bon." Reg. capit. Eccles. Rothom., March 16, 1561, apud Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 374, 375.]

[Footnote 1016: "Aliud est Christianum esse quatn Papistam non esse." Letter to Wolf, March 25, 1561, ap. Baum, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1017: This very year parliament had issued an order, at the commencement of Lent, directing the sick, "permission prealablement obtenue," to purchase the meat they needed of the butcher of the Hotel-Dieu, who alone was permitted to sell, and who was compelled to submit weekly to the court a record, not only of the permissions granted and the persons to whom he sold, but even of the quantity which each applicant obtained! Registers of Parliament, Feb. 27, 1561, apud Felibien, Histoire de Paris, iv., Preuves, 797.]

[Footnote 1018: Honorat de Savoie, Comte de Villars, had a private grudge to satisfy against the admiral, who had complained to the king of the cruelties which he had perpetrated in Languedoc. La Place, 122.]

[Footnote 1019: La Place, Commentaires, ubi supra; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 41-43; Hist. eccles., i. 287; Huguenot poetical libel in Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 745.]

[Footnote 1020: "Auquel (l'evesque de Valence) il dict qu'il se contentoit de ceste fois, et qu'il n'y retournerois plus." La Place, Commentaires, ubi supra; De Thou, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1021: La Place, Commentaires, 123, De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 45. How deep the disappointment felt by the Protestants at the constable's course must have been, can be gathered from the sanguine picture of the prospects of the French Reformation drawn by Languet a couple of months earlier. Arguing from the comparative mildness of Montmorency in the persecutions under Henry II., from the fact that he had allowed no one of his five sons to enter the ecclesiastical state, which offered rare opportunities of advancement, and from the influence which his sons and his three nephews—all favorably inclined to, if not open adherents of the new doctrines—would exert over the old man, he not unnaturally came to this conclusion: "I am, therefore, of opinion that, if the Guises still retain any power, the constable will join Navarre for the purpose of overwhelming them, and will make no opposition to Navarre if he sets on foot a moderate reformation of doctrine." Epist. secr., ii., p. 102.]

[Footnote 1022: La Place and De Thou, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1023: This document first appears in the Memoires de Conde, under the title "Sommaire des choses premierement accordees entre les Ducs de Montmorency Connestable, et De Guyse Grand Maistre, Pairs de France, et le Mareschal Sainct Andre, pour la Conspiration du Triumvirat, et depuis mises en deliberation a l'entree du Sacre et Sainct Concile de Trente, et arrestee entre les Parties, en leur prive Conseil faict contre les Heretiques, et contre le Roy de Navarre, en tant qu'il gouverne et conduit mal les affaires de Charles neufiesme Roy de France, Mineur; lequel est Autheur de continuel accroissement de la nouvelle Secte qui pullule en France." The principal provisions are given by De Thou, iii. (liv. xxix.) 142, 143, under date of 1562, who explicitly states his disbelief of its authenticity. Neither, indeed, does the compiler of the Mem. de Conde vouch for it. Among other objections that have been urged with force against the genuineness of the document, are the following: The improbability that the Triumvirs would mature a plan involving all the Catholic sovereigns of Europe without previously obtaining their consent, of which there is no trace; the inconsistency of the project with the well-known policy and character of the German Emperor Ferdinand; the improbability that the Council of Trent would indorse a plan aimed at the humiliation of Navarre, who, when the council actually reassembled in January, 1562, was completely won over to the Roman party. In favor of the document may be urged: First, that M. Capefigue (Histoire de la reforme, de la ligue, etc., ii. 243-245) asserts: "J'ai trouve cette piece, qu'on a crue supposee, en original et signee dans les MSS. Colbert, bibl. du roi." Prof. Soldan, who has devoted an appendix to the first volume of his Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, to a discussion of this reported agreement between the Triumvirs, was unsuccessful in finding any trace of such a paper. Secondly, that the Memoires de Guise, the manuscript of which, according to the statement of the editor, M. Aime Champollion, fils (Notice sur Francois de Lorraine, due d'Aumale et de Guise, prefixed to his Memoires, first published in the Collection Michaud-Poujoulat, 1851, p. 5), is partly in the handwriting of the duke himself, partly in that of his secretary, Millet, insert the "Sommaire" precisely as it stands in the Memoires de Conde, without any denial of its authenticity. This would appear, at first sight, to settle the question beyond cavil. But it must be borne in mind that many of the memoires of the sixteenth century are compiled on the plan of including all contemporary papers of importance, whether written by friend or by foe. Frequently the most contradictory narratives of the same event are placed side by side, with little or no comment. This is precisely the case with those of Guise, in which, for example, no less than four accounts—three of them from Huguenot sources—are given of the massacre of Vassy. Now we have the testimony of De Thou (ubi supra) that this agreement, industriously circulated by the Prince of Conde and the Huguenots, made a powerful impression not only in France, but in Germany and all Northern Europe. So important a document, even if a forgery, would naturally find a place in such a collection as the Memoires of Guise. Altogether the matter is in a singularly interesting position. Could the manuscript seen by M. Capefigue be found and re-examined critically, the truth might, perhaps, be reached. M. Henri Martin, in his excellent Histoire de France, x. 79, note, accepts the document as genuine.]

[Footnote 1024: The "plebe e populo minuto," the Venetian Michiel tell us, "e quello che si vede certo con gran fervenzia e devozione frequentar le chiese, e continuar li riti cattolici." Relations des Amb. Ven. i., 412.]

[Footnote 1025: "Aulcuns desditz ecclesiasticques," is Claude Haton's ingenuous admission respecting his fellow priests of this period, "estoient fort vicieux encores pour lors, et les plus vicieux estoient ceux qui plus resistoient auxditz huguenotz, jusques a mettre la main aux cousteaux et aux armes." Memoires, i. 129.]

[Footnote 1026: Memoires de Conde, i. 27.]

[Footnote 1027: "In viginti urbibus aut circiter trucidati fuerunt pii a furiosa plebe." Letter of Calvin to Bullinger, May 24, 1561, apud Baum, ii., App., 33. At Mans, on Lady-Day (March 25th), so serious a riot took place, that the bishop felt compelled to apologize in a letter to Catharine (April 23d), in which he excuses his flock by alleging that they were exasperated beyond endurance by the sight of a Huguenot "assemblee" openly held by day in the "Faubourg St. Jehan," contrary to the royal ordinances—some of the attendants, he asserts, coming out of the meeting armed. His letter is to be found in the Mem. de Conde, ii. 339.]

[Footnote 1028: And was openly denounced by his clergy from the pulpit, in Passion Week, as an "apostate," a "traitor," a "new Judas," etc. Bulletin, xxiii. 84.]

[Footnote 1029: De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 51, 52; Histoire eccles., i. 287; La Place, 124; Calvin to Bullinger, Baum, ii., App., 33; Journal de Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, ii. 27. Interesting documents from the municipal records of Beauvais, Bulletin, xxiii. (1874) 84, etc. Letter of Chantonnay, Rheims, May 10, 1561 (Mem. de Conde, ii. 11), who adds: "L'Admiral ha tant peu avec le credit qu'il ha ver Monsieur de Vendosme [Navarre], que l'on a execute deux ou trois de ceulx du peuple; lequel depuis s'est leve de nouveau, et a pendu le bourreau qui feit l'execution."]

[Footnote 1030: "Car, de toutes les choses, la plus incompatible en ung estat, ce sont deux religions contraires."]

[Footnote 1031: Journal de Bruslart, Memoires de Conde, i. 26, etc.; Registers of Parliament, ibid., ii. 341, etc., and apud Felibien, Hist. de Paris, Preuves, iv. 798, Arret of April 28th and 29th. According to the information that had reached Calvin, twelve had been killed and forty wounded by Longjumeau and his friends (Calvin to Bullinger, ubi supra). The parliamentary registers do not give the precise number. The good curate of S. Barthelemi makes no allusion to any attack, but sets down the loss of the Roman Catholics at three killed and nine wounded. Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 41. Hubert Languet says seven were killed. Epist. secr., ii. 117.]

[Footnote 1032: Letters patent of Fontainebleau, April 19, 1561, Mem. de Conde, ii. 334, 335; La Place; and Hist. eccles., ubi supra; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 52.]

[Footnote 1033: How the devoted adherents of the Roman church received this edict and its predecessor appears from the Memoires of Claude Haton. In the city of Provins, a short distance from Paris, one or two preachers reluctantly consented to read it in the churches; but "maistre Barrier," a Franciscan and curate of Sainte Croix, instead of the required proclamation, made these remarks to the people at the commencement of his sermon: "On m'a cejourd'-huy apporte ung memoire et papier escript, qu'on m'a dict estre la coppie d'un edict du roy, pour vous le publier; et veult-on que je vous dye que les chatz et les ratz doibvent vivre en paix les ungs avec les aultres, sans se rien faire de mal l'ung a l'autre, et que nous aultres Francoys, e'est assavoir les heretiques et les catholicques, fassions ainsi, et que le roy le veult. Je ne suis crieur ni trompette de la ville pour faire telles publications. Dieu veuille par sa misericorde avoir pitie de son eglise et du royaume de France, les deux ensemble sont prestz de tomber en grande ruyne; Dieu veuille bailler bon conseil a nostre jeune roy et inspirer ses gouverneurs a bien faire; ils entrent a leur gouvernement par ung pauvre commencement, mais ce est en punition de noz pechez." Memoires de Claude Haton, i. 123, 124.]

[Footnote 1034: La Place, 124-126; Histoire eccles., i. 288, etc.; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 52, 53. The remonstrance of parliament was, in point of fact, little more than an echo of the strenuous protest of the Spanish ambassador to the queen mother. See Chantonnay to Catharine de' Medici, April 22, 1561, Memoires de Conde, ii. 6-10.]

[Footnote 1035: According to Claude Haton, the edict was received with ineffable delight, especially in those cities of the kingdom where there were Huguenot judges. The Catholics were despised. The Huguenots became bold: "En toutes compagnies, assemblees et lieux publicz, ilz huguenotz avoient le hault parler." Despite the prohibition of the employment of insulting terms, they called their adversaries "papaux, idolatres, pauvres abusez." and "tisons du purgatoire du pape." Memoires, i. 122. Doubtless a smaller measure of free speech than this would have sufficed to stir up the bile of the curate of Meriot.]

[Footnote 1036: Already, on the 6th of March, Claude Boissiere had written to the Genevan reformer from Saintes: "God has so augmented His church that we number to-day by the grace of God thirty-eight pastors in this province" (Saintonge in Western France), "each of us having the care of so many towns and parishes, that, had we fifty more, we should scarcely be able to satisfy half the charges that present themselves." Geneva MSS., apud Bulletin, xiv. (1855) 320, and Crottet, Hist. des egl. ref. de Pons, Gemozac, etc., 57.]

[Footnote 1037: Letter to Bullinger, May 24, 1561, apud Baum, ii., App., 32, and Bonnet, Eng. tr., iv. 190.]

[Footnote 1038: Letter of Gilbert de Vaux, April 5, 1561. MS. in Nat. Lib. of Paris, apud Bulletin, xiv. 321, 322.]

[Footnote 1039: After having examined the churches, convents, etc., the lieutenant, though a Roman Catholic, reported to the Toulouse parliament "qu'il avoit trouve une telle obeissance en ceste ville que le roy demande a tous ses subjects, de sorte qu'il n'y avoit eu jamais un coup frappe, ne injure dicte aux papistes par ceux de l'Evangile."]

[Footnote 1040: Letter of Du Vignault to M. d'Espeville (Calvin), May 26, 1561, in Geneva MSS., Bulletin, xiv. (1865) 322-324.]

[Footnote 1041: "Ceux de Tholoze sont du tout enrages, car ils ne cessent de brusler les paoures fideles de jour a aultre. Le trouppeau est fort desole, et croy qu'est sans pasteur." Letter of La Chasse, Montpellier, June 14, 1561, to M. d'Espeville, Geneva MSS., ubi supra, p. 325.]

[Footnote 1042: La Place, 127, 128; De Thou, iii., liv. xxviii. 53.]

[Footnote 1043: Memoires de Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 3. The discussion was long, and would have been tedious, had it not turned upon so important a topic. There were 140 members of parliament, and according to its regulations no one was allowed to concur simply in the views of another, but each counsellor was compelled to express his own sentiments, which were then committed to writing. As some of the high dignitaries of state also gave their opinions, there were altogether more than 150 speakers, and parliament met twice a day to listen to them. The Bishop of Paris, after harshly advocating the rekindling of the extinct fires of the estrapade, was compelled to hear in return some plain words from Admiral Coligny, who boldly accused the bishops and priests of being the cause of all the evils from which the Christian world was suffering, while at the same time they instigated a cruel persecution of those who exposed their crimes. The letters of Hubert Languet, who was in Paris at the time, are exceedingly instructive. Epist. secr., ii. 122, 125, etc.]

[Footnote 1044: Or seven, according to Languet, Epist. sec., ii. 130.]

[Footnote 1045: Journal de Bruslart, Memoires de Conde, i. 40, etc.; Despatches of Chantonnay, Mem. de Conde, ii. 12-15; La Place, 130; Hist. eccles., i. 293, 294; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 54. Cf. Martin, Hist. de France, x. 82, Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. 172, etc., and Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 428.]

[Footnote 1046: It is styled a "mercuriale" in a contemporary letter of Du Pasquier (Augustin Marlorat), Rouen, July 11, 1561, Bulletin, xiv. (1865) 364: "On dit que la mercuriale est achevee, mais la conclusion n'est pas encores publiee."]

[Footnote 1047: H. Martin, Hist. de France, x. 83.]

[Footnote 1048: The text of the Edict of July is given in Isambert, Recueil gen. des anc. lois fr., xiv. 109-111; Histoire eccles., i. 294-296; Mem. de Conde, i. 42-45. Cf. La Place, 130, 131; De Thou, iii. 54, 55; Mem. de Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 3.]

[Footnote 1049: "Que son epee ne tiendrait jamais au fourreau quand il serait question da faire sortir effet a cet arrete." Martin, x. 83.]

[Footnote 1050: Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1051: The cathedral alone persisted in holding out a day or two longer, and then made an unwilling sacrifice of its pictures, protesting at the same time that it only wanted peace and friendship.]

[Footnote 1052: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 530-532.]

[Footnote 1053: Letter to the church of Sauve, July, 1561, Bonnet, Lettres franc., ii. 415-418. It is instructive to note that the Provincial Synod of Sommieres took the decisive step of deposing the pastor of Sauve; nor was he pardoned until he had been convinced of his error, and had declared that he had done nothing except through righteous zeal, and in order to preclude many scandals. Geneva MS., apud Bonnet, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1054: See the royal letters of prorogation of March 25th, Mem. de Conde, ii. 281-284.]

[Footnote 1055: La Place, Commentaires, 140; De Thou, iii. 57; Mem. de Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 4.]

[Footnote 1056: The famous chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, a favorite residence of the monarchs of the later Valois branch, is situated on the river Seine, a few miles below Paris. Poissy, where the assembly of the prelates convened, was selected on account of its proximity to the court. It is also on the Seine, which, between Poissy and St. Germain, makes a great bend toward the north; across the neck of the peninsula the distance from place to place is only about three miles. Pontoise, deriving its name from its bridge over the river Oise, a tributary of the Seine, lies about eight miles north of St. Germain.]

[Footnote 1057: The origin of the singular designation of this officer—a designation quite unique—is discussed con amore by Chassanee, in that remarkable book, Catalogus Gloriae Mundi (edition of 1586), lib. xi., c. 5, fol. 239. Chassanee, who was himself of Autun, traces the title and office of vierg back to the Vergobretus of ancient Gallic times. Caesar, Bell. Gallic, i. 16.]

[Footnote 1058: The curious may find an instructive paragraph in his speech, devoted to a list of onerous taxes bearing in great part, or exclusively, on the people. La Place, 145.]

[Footnote 1059: "Le temps est une creature de Dieu a luy subjecte, de maniere que dix mille ans ne sont une minute en la puissance de nostre Dieu." The long speech of M. Bretagne, certainly one of the noblest pleas for freedom of religious worship to be found within the limits of the sixteenth century, is inserted in full in the Recueil des choses memorables (1565), 620-645, in La Place, liv. vi. 141-150, and in the Hist. eccles. des eglises reformees, i. 298-305. Summary in De Thou, iii. 57, 58.]

[Footnote 1060: Projects somewhat similar had been made, early in the year, in some of the provincial estates. In those of Languedoc, held at Montpellier in March, 1561, Terlon, a "capitoul" of Toulouse, speaking for the "tiers etat," advocated the sale of all the secular possessions of the clergy, reserving only a residence for the incumbent, and assigning him a pension equal to his present income, to be paid by the cities of the kingdom. Chabot, a lawyer of Nismes, went further, and, when the clamor of the people had secured the hearing at first denied him, did not hesitate to say that the burdens of the province should be placed upon the shoulders of the priests and monks—whom he stigmatized as ignorant and corrupt—because of the evils they had inflicted upon the people. He even wanted a petition to this effect, signed by thirty syndicates favorable to the reformed religion, to be inserted in the cahier of Languedoc. Memoires d'Achille Gamon—advocate and consul of Annonay—apud Collection de Memoires, Michaud et Poujoulat, 611. Some such wholesale confiscation seems even to have entered into the plans of the cabinet. In May, 1561, royal letters were sent to the Bishop of Paris, to the provost, and indeed, throughout France, demanding a return of the true value of all episcopal and other revenues (Memoires de Conde, i. 27). The object was plain enough. The clergy remonstrated energetically, as may be imagined (Ib., i. 29-39). The Paris clergy had especial recourse to the Cardinal of Lorraine, in a letter of June 3d. Honest Abbe Bruslart, touched to the quick by the suggestion, notes in his quaint journal: "Voila les incommoditez de la nouvelle religion," etc. (Ib., i. 28).]

[Footnote 1061: "La diversite d'opinion soubstenues par vos subjects ne provient que d'ung grand zelle et affection qu'ils ont au salut de leurs ames."]

[Footnote 1062: La Place, 152; De Thou, iii. 58, 59; Hist. eccles., i. 306; Garnier, H. de France, xxix. 308, etc., who gives a very full abstract; but Ranke, v. 93-97, publishes from the MS. the hitherto inedited cahier.]

[Footnote 1063: Catharine's own account is given in an important letter to the Bishop of Rennes, written September 14, 1561—five days after the colloquy commenced: "Ayant este requise, y a deja quelques mois, de la pluspart de la noblesse et des gens du tiers estat de ce Royaume, de faire ouir lea ministres, qui sont departis en plusieurs villes de cedit Royaume, sur leur Confession de Foy; je fus conseillee par mon frere le Roy de Navarre, les autres Princes du sang, et les Gens du Conseil du Roy Monsieur mon fils, de ce faire; ayant avise apres avoir longuement et meurement delibere la-dessus, que aux grands troubles ... il n'y avoit meilleur moyen ny plus fructueux pour faire abandonner les dits Ministres et retirer ceux qui leur adherent, que en faissant confondre leur doctrine et montrant et decouvrant ce qu'il y a d'erreur et d'heresie." Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 732, 733.]

[Footnote 1064: Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. 175; Martin, Hist. de France, x. 84. The restriction of the invitation to Frenchmen is referred to by Catharine in a letter of September 14 (Le Laboureur, Add., i. 733): "Ayant ... accorde a ceux desdits Ministres qui seroient nez en France, de comparoittre a Poissy."]

[Footnote 1065: The letters of La Riviere, Conde, Chatillon, and Antoine of Navarre, are printed in Baum, App., 34, 35. The question naturally arises, Why did not Calvin himself, who had been specially invited by the Protestant princes, receive permission from the magistrates of Geneva to go to Poissy? The truth is, that the Protestants of Paris "did not see the possibility of his being present without grave peril, in view of the rage conceived against him by the enemies of the Gospel, and the disturbances his name alone would excite in the country were he known to be in it." "In fact," they say in a letter but recently brought to light, "the Admiral by no means favors your undertaking the journey, and we have learned with certainty that the queen would not relish seeing you there, frankly saying that she cannot pledge herself for your safety in these parts, as she can for that of the rest. Meanwhile, the enemies of the Gospel, on the other hand, say that they would be glad to hear all the rest [of the reformers], but that, as for you, they could not bring themselves to listen to you or look at you. You see, sir, in what esteem you are held by these venerable prelates. I suspect that you will not be very much grieved by it, nor consider yourself dishonored by being thus regarded by such gentry!" La Riviere, in the name of all the ministers of Paris, to Calvin, July 31, 1561, Bulletin, xvi. (1867), 602-604.]

[Footnote 1066: Letter of the Syndics and Council of Geneva to the Lords of Zurich, July 21, 1561, and Charles IX.'s safe-conduct for Peter Martyr, July 30, Baum, ii., App., 36, 37.]

[Footnote 1067: Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 724; cf. letter of Card. de la Bourdaisiere to the Bishop of Rennes, Rome, August 23, 1561, ibid., and of Chantonnay to Tisnacq, September 6, Mem. de Conde, ii. 18.]

[Footnote 1068: The papal nuncio, Prospero di Santa Croce, indeed, represents the Cardinal of Lorraine as the originator of the perilous scheme. When Lorraine and Tournon, whom the Pope had constituted his legates, with the commission to put forth their most strenuous exertions to uphold the Roman Church in France, found advice, exhortation, and persuasion all in vain, Lorraine, in an evil hour, advised the holding of a colloquy: "Lotharingius audaci potius quam prudenti consilio reginae persuasit, ut Possiaci conventus haberetur episcoporum Galliae, in quo de religione ac moribus tractaretur: simulque copia fieret Hugonottorum principibus, Ministros illi vocant, si vellent, veniendi, neque iis solum qui erant in Gallia, sed ex finitimis etiam provinciis vocarentur, ut quae erant de religione controversa proponerentur; futurum sperans, ut ne respondere quidem ad sua postulata auderent. Confidebat enim Lotharingius et doctrinae et eloquentiae suae, et plurimum, ut debebat, ipsius causae bonitati." Cardinal Tournon was opposed to this course: "Non probabat hoc factum Turnonius, ut qui disputationem omnem cum haereticis fugiendam noverat." P. Santacrucii de civilibus Galliae dissensionibus commentarii, Martene et Durand, tom. v. 1462.]

[Footnote 1069: Letter of La Riviere, in the name of all the ministers of Paris, Aug. 10, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 37-39.]

[Footnote 1070: The letter, now in the State archives of Geneva, is signed "Le Roy de Navarre bien vostre, Anthoyne," Baum, ubi supra, ii. 40. The character of this contemptible prince is best understood when such lines are read in the light of the intrigues he was at this very moment—as we shall have occasion to see—carrying on at Rome. When it is borne in mind that the colloquy of Poissy preceded the edict of January by four months, and that Beza manifested no little hesitation in coming to France, it becomes somewhat difficult to comprehend Mr. Froude's account (Hist. of England, vii. 390): "The Cardinal of Lorraine demanded from the Parliament of Paris the revocation of the edicts (sic) of January. Confident of his power, he even challenged the Protestants to a public discussion before the court. Theodore Beza snatched eagerly at the gage; the Conference of Poissy followed," etc.]

[Footnote 1071: Letter of Calvin to Martyr, Aug. 17, 1561, apud Baum, ii., App., 40; and Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, Eng. tr., iv. 209.]

[Footnote 1072: Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. 22, 1561, written three hours after his arrival, apud Baum, ii., App., 44.]

[Footnote 1073: See the admirable biography of Beza, by Dr. H. Heppe, being the sixth volume of the Leben und ausgewaehlte Schriften der Vaeter und Begruender der reformirte Kirche; as well as the more extended work of Prof. Baum, frequently referred to.]

[Footnote 1074: "Les avertissant qu'il ne leur donneroit conge de se departir jusques a ce qu'ils y eussent donne ordre." Letter of the Sieur du Mortier, French amb. at Rome, to the Bp. of Rennes, Aug. 9, 1561, apud Le Laboureur, Additions to Castelnau, i. 730. This authority would seem to be a positive proof that the speech which is attributed by La Place and other historians of the period to the king at the opening of the conference with the Protestants on the 9th of September, has, by a very natural error, been transposed from this place. De Thou, La Popeliniere, and others have made the more serious blunder of placing the chancellor's speech, which belongs here, at the same conference, and omitting the true address which La Place, etc., insert. Prof. Baum (Theodor Beza, ii. 242, note) first detected the inconsistencies between the two reported speeches of L'Hospital on the 9th of September, but gave preference in the text to the wrong document. Prof. Soldan has elucidated the whole matter with his usual skill (Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 440, note).]

[Footnote 1075: De Thou, iii. 63; La Place, 155.]

[Footnote 1076: "Sans venir au fait de la doctrine, ou ils ne veulent toucher non plus qu'au feu." Letter of Secretary Bourdin to his brother-in-law Bochetel, the Bishop of Rennes, French ambassador in Germany, Aug. 23, 1561, apud Laboureur, Add. aux Mem. de Castelnau, i. 731. If we are to construe the language of the Histoire eccles. des egl. ref. (i. 307) with verbal strictness, the theological discussions occasionally waxed so hot that the prelates found themselves unable to solve the knotty questions with which they were occupied, without recourse to the convincing argument of the fist!]

[Footnote 1077: Languet, letter of Aug. 6th, ii. 130.]

[Footnote 1078: Letter of Chantonnay, Aug. 31 (Mem. de Conde, ii. 16).]

[Footnote 1079: "Mais ceux qui sont extremement malades sont excusez d'appliquer toutes herbes a la douleur pour l'appaiser, quand elle est insupportable, attendant le bon medecin, que j'estime devoir estre un bon Concile, pour une si furieuse et dangereuse maladie." Letter of Catharine to the Bishop of Rennes, Aug. 23, 1561, apud Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 727.]

[Footnote 1080: An incident, preserved for us by Languet, which happened about this time, reveals somewhat of Catharine's temper and of the doubts that pervaded the young king's mind. On Corpus Christi day, the queen mother, in conversation with her son, recommended to him that, while duly reverencing the sacrament, he should not entertain so gross a belief as that the bread which was carried around in the procession was the very body of Christ which hung from the cross. Charles replied that he had received the same warning from others, but coupled with the injunction that he should say nothing about it to any one. "Yet," responded Catharine smiling, "you must take care not to forsake your ancestral religion, lest your kingdom may be thrown into confusion, and you yourself be driven into banishment." To which Charles aptly replied: "The Queen of England has changed the religion of her kingdom, but no one gives her any trouble." Epist. secr., ii. 127.]

[Footnote 1081: De Thou (iii., liv. xxviii., pp. 60-63) gives the substance, Gerdesius (Scrinium Antiq., v. 339, seq.) the text of this extraordinary letter. See also Jean de Serres, i. 212, etc.]

[Footnote 1082: From Hurault's letter of July 12th, to the Bishop of Rennes, we learn the date of the Cardinal of Ferrara's departure from Rome—July 2d. He travelled so slowly, however, that it was not until September 19th that he reached St. Germain.]

[Footnote 1083: "Que je n'avoys recu change depuis qu'il n'avoit voulu parler a moy de peur d'estre excommunie." Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. 25, 1561, Baum, ii. Appendix, 46. This long and important letter, giving a graphic account of the first days of Beza at St. Germain, was signed, for safety's sake, "T. de Chalonoy," and addressed to "Monsieur d'Espeville, a Villedieu." The Duke d'Aumale has also published this letter in his Histoire des Princes de Conde, i. 340-342. There are some striking differences in the two; none more noteworthy than the omission in Prof. Baum's copy of a sentence which very clearly marks the distrust still felt by the reformers of the upright Chancellor L'Hospital. After reference to L'Hospital's greeting, Beza originally wrote: "Force me fut de le suyvre, mais ce fut avec un tel visage qu'il congnut assez que je le congnoissois." From the later copy and from the Latin translation inserted by Beza himself in the collection of Calvin's letters, these words are omitted.]

[Footnote 1084: "Avec une troupe cent foys plus grande que je n'eusse desire." Ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1085: Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, ubi supra. Beza, to whom Conde immediately afterward gave an account of the act of reconciliation, was not altogether satisfied with it. I have spoken of it as unfortunate, because it removed all the obstacles to the more complete union of the constable and the Guises against the Huguenots. La Place, 140; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 56.]

[Footnote 1086: "Estant arrivez a la court, ilz y furent mieux accueillis que n'eust este le pape de Rome, s'il y fust venu." Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 155.]

[Footnote 1087: Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, Baum. ii., Appendix, 47-54; La Place, 155-157; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 64; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref. i. 309-312.]

[Footnote 1088: "Nous confessons, dy-je, que panis est corpus sacramentale, et pour definir que c'est a dire sacramentaliter, nous disons qu'encores que le corps soit aujourd'huy au ciel et non ailleurs, et les signes soyent en la terre avec nous, toutefoys aussi veritablement nous est donne ce corps et recu par nous, moyennant la foy," etc. Baum, ii. App., 52.]

[Footnote 1089: "Je le croy ainsy, dit-il, Madame, et voila qui me contente." Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1090: "Sed illud totum ita complectebatur, ut satis ostenderet penitus se non tenere quid hoc rei esset. Agnoscebat enim se aliis studiis tempus impendisse." Beza, ubi supra, p. 50. The Latin version of Beza's letter of August 25th, made under the writer's own supervision, for publication with a selection of Calvin's letters (Geneva, 1576), contains a fuller account of the discussion than the French original actually despatched. See Baum, ubi supra, 45-54.]

[Footnote 1091: "Cardinalis testatus iterum non urgere se transubstantiationem." Latin version, ubi supra. "Car, disoit il, pour la transsubstantiation je ne suys poinct d'advis qu'il y ayt schisme en l'eglise." French original, ubi supra, 50, 51.]

[Footnote 1092: "Tum ego ad reginam conversus: 'Ecce inquam sacramentarios illos tam diu vexatos, et omnibus calumniis oppressos.' 'Escoutez vous,' dit elle, 'Monsieur le cardinal? Il dit que les sacrementaires n'out point aultre opinion que ceste-cy a laquelle vous accordez.'" Letter of Beza, ubi supra, 52.]

[Footnote 1093: Cf. letter of Beza, ubi supra, 47 and 52.]

[Footnote 1094: "Vous trouverez que je ne suis pas si noir qu'on me faict." Beza, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1095: "Bon homme pour ce soir, mays demain quoy?" Beza, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1096: "Le lendemain le bruict courut, non seulement a la cour, mais aussi a Possy, et jusques aux pays loingtains, que de Beze avoit este vaincu et reduict par le cardinal de Lorraine au premier colloque faict entr'eux." La Place, 157. So Beza himself heard the very morning he wrote: "Or est-il que tout ce matin il n'a cesse de se venter qu'il m'a convaincu et reduict a son opinion;" but he adds: "J'ay bons tesmoins et bons garants, Dieu mercy, de tout le contraire." Ubi supra. So also in his letter of Aug. 30th (Ib., 59): "Cardinalis fortiter jactat me primo statim congressu a se superatum, sed a gravissimis tesbibus refellitur." "Ce que le Connetable ayant dit a le Reine a son disner, comme s'en rejouissant, elle lui dict tout hautement, comme celle qui avoit assiste, qu'il estoit tres-mal informe." Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i. 312.]

[Footnote 1097: "Duodecima hujus mensis profectos esse in aulam octo ex fratribus nostris, quibus nunc accessit noster Galasius." Letter of Beza, Aug. 22, 1561, Baum, 2 App., 44.]

[Footnote 1098: Aug. 17th. Hist. eccles., i. 308, etc., where this document is given; La Place, 154; Letter of Beza of Aug. 22d, ubi supra, 45.]

[Footnote 1099: La Place, 154. "Ce meme jour selon nostre requeste a este accorde que nous serons ouys et que nos parties ne seront nos juges, mais il y a encore de l'encloueure qui fait que n'avons encore eu une reponse resolutive, laquelle on diet que nous aurons solemnement et en cour pleniere." Beza, letter of Aug. 25th, Baum, ii., App., 47]

[Footnote 1100: La Place, ubi supra. "Nous avons entendu a ce matin qu'on avoyt mis en deliberation au conseil, si nous devions estre ouys selon nostre requeste. Mais la royne a tranche tout court, qu'elle ne vouloit point qu'on deliberat de cela, mais qu'elle vouloyt que nous fussions ouys, qu'on regardast seulement aux conditions par nous proposees. Les ecclesiastiques qui estoyent presens out dit qu'ils ne vouloyent rien respondre de ceste affaire, qu'ils n'en eussent parle a leurs compaygnons." Letter of Francois de Morel, Aug. 25, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 55.]

[Footnote 1101: On the 9th of June, 1561, Hist. eccles. des egl. ref, i. 308.]

[Footnote 1102: Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 60.]

[Footnote 1103: "Eo deventum est ut necesse fuerit nos parenti Reginae testari statim discessuros nisi nobis adversus hostium audaciam caveretur." Beza, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1104: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 1105: Not unreasonably did the queen mother allege—and none knew it better than she—that even written engagements derive their chief value from the good faith of those that make them: "Que il estoit malaise mesmes avec l'escripture d'empescher de decevoir celuy qui ha intention de tromper." La Place, 157.]

[Footnote 1106: "Sans rien chercher que la gloire de Dieu, de laquelle elle estimoit qu'ils fussent studieux et amateurs." La Place, 157. Compare the letter of Catharine to the Bp. of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561, apud Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i, 733.]

[Footnote 1107: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, ubi supra; La Place, 157; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 314.]



CHAPTER XII.

THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY AND THE EDICT OF JANUARY.

[Sidenote: The Huguenot ministers and delegates.]

On Tuesday, the ninth of September, 1561, the long-expected conference was to be opened. That morning, at ten o'clock, a procession of ministers and delegates of the Reformed churches left St. Germain-en-Laye on horseback for the village of Poissy. The ministers, twelve in number, were men of note: Theodore de Beze, or Beza, with whom the reader is already well acquainted; Augustin Marlorat, a native of Lorraine, formerly a monk, but now famous in the Protestant ranks, and the leading pastor in Rouen, a man over fifty years of age; Francois de Saint Paul, a learned theologian and the founder of the churches of Montelimart, a delegate from Provence; Jean Raymond Merlin, professor of Hebrew at Geneva, and chaplain of Admiral Coligny; Jean Malot, pastor at Paris; Francois de Morel, who had presided in the First National Synod of 1559, and had recently been given to the Duchess Renee of Ferrara, as her private chaplain; Nicholas Folion, surnamed La Vallee, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, now pastor at Orleans; Claude de la Boissiere, of Saintes; Jean Bouquin, of Oleron; Jean Virel; Jean de la Tour, a patriarch of nearly seventy years; and Nicholas des Gallars, who, after having been a prominent preacher at Geneva and Paris, had for the past two years ministered to the large congregation of French refugees in London. It was a body of Huguenot theologians unsurpassed for ability by any others within the kingdom.[1108]

So high ran the excitement of the populace, stirred up by frequent appeals to the worst passions in the human breast, and by highly-colored accounts of the boldness with which the "new doctrines" had for weeks been preached within the precincts of the court, that serious apprehension was entertained lest Beza and his companions might be assaulted by the way.[1109] The peaceable ministers of religion were, therefore, accompanied by a strong escort of one hundred mounted archers of the royal guard. After a ride of less than half an hour, they reached the nuns' convent, in which the prelates had been holding their sessions.

[Sidenote: Assembly in the nuns' refectory.]

[Sidenote: The prelates.]

Meantime, an august and imposing assembly was gathered in the spacious conventual refectory.[1110] On an elevated seat, upon the dais at its farther extremity, was the king, on whose youthful shoulders rested the crushing weight of the government of a kingdom rent by discordant sentiments and selfish factions, and already upon the verge of an open civil war. Near him sat his wily mother—that "merchant's daughter" whose plebeian origin the first Christian baron of France had pointed out with ill-disguised contempt, but whose plans and purposes had now acquired such world-wide importance that grave diplomats and shrewd churchmen esteemed the difficult riddle of her sphinx-like countenance and character a worthy subject of prolonged study. Not far from their royal brother, were two children: the elder, a boy of ten years, Edward Alexander, a few years later to appear on the pages of history under the altered name of Henry the Third, the last Valois King of France; the younger, a girl of nine—that Margaret of Valois and Navarre, whose nuptials have attained a celebrity as wide as the earth and as lasting as the records of religious dissensions. Antoine and Louis of Bourbon, brothers by blood but not in character; Jeanne d'Albret, heiress of Navarre, more queenly at heart than many a sovereign with dominions far exceeding the contracted territory of Bearn; the princes representing more distant branches of the royal stock, and the members of the council of state, completed the group. On two long benches, running along the opposite sides of the hall, the prelates were arranged according to their dignities. Tournon, Lorraine, and Chatillon, each in full cardinal's robes, faced their brethren of the Papal Consistory, Armagnac, Bourbon, and Guise, while a long row of archbishops and bishops filled out the line on either side. Altogether, forty or fifty prelates, with numerous attendant theologians and members of the superior clergy, regular and secular, had been marshalled to oppose the little band of reformers.[1111]

It was an array of pomp and power, of ecclesiastical place and wealth and ambition, of traditional and hereditary nobility, of all that an ancient and powerful church could muster to meet the attack of fresh and vigorous thought, the inroad of moral and religious reforms, the irrepressible conflict of a faith based solely upon a written revelation. The external promise of victory was all on the side of the prelates. Yet, strange to say, the engagement that was about to take place was none of their seeking. With the exception of the Cardinal of Lorraine, they were well-nigh unanimous in reprobating a venture from which they apprehended only disaster. Perhaps even Lorraine now repented his presumption, and felt less assured of his dialectic skill since he had tried the mettle of his Genevese antagonist. Rarely has battle been forced upon an army after a greater number of fruitless attempts to avoid it than those made by the French ecclesiastics, backed by the alternate solicitations and menaces of Pius the Fourth, and Philip of Spain. Such reluctance was ominous.

On the other side, the feeling of the reformers was, indeed, confidence in the excellence of the cause they represented, but confidence not unmingled with anxiety.

[Sidenote: Diffidence of Beza.]

A letter written by Beza only a few days before affords us a glimpse of the secret apprehensions of the Protestants. "If Martyr come in time," he wrote Calvin, "that is, if he greatly hasten, his arrival will refresh us exceedingly. We shall have to do with veteran sophists, and, although we be confident that the simple truth of the Word will prove victorious, yet it is not in the power of every man instantly to resolve their artifices and allege the sayings of the Fathers. Moreover, it will be necessary for us to make such answers that we shall not seem, to the circle of princes and others that stand by, to be seeking to evade the question. In short, when I contemplate these difficulties, I become exceedingly anxious, and much do I deplore our fault in neglecting the excellent instruments which God has given us, and thus in a manner appearing to tempt His goodness. Meanwhile, however, we have resolved not to retreat, and we trust in Him who has promised us a wisdom which the world cannot resist.... Direct us, my father, like children by your counsels in your absence from us, since you cannot be present with us. For, simple children I daily see and feel that we are, from whose mouth I hope that our wonderful Lord will perfect the praise of His wisdom."[1112]

[Sidenote: L'Hospital explains the objects in view.]

The king opened the conference with a few words before the Protestants were admitted,[1113] and then called upon the chancellor to explain more fully the objects of the gathering. Hereupon Michel de L'Hospital, seating himself, by Charles's direction, on a stool at the king's right hand, set forth at considerable length the religious dissensions which had fallen upon France, and the ineffectual measures to which the king and his predecessors had from time to time resorted. Severity and mildness had proved equally futile. Dangerous division had crept in. He begged the assembled prelates to heal this disease of the body politic, to appease the anger of God visibly resting upon the kingdom by every means in their power; especially to reform any abuses contrary to God's word and the ordinances of the apostles, which the sloth or ignorance of the clergy might have introduced, and thus remove every excuse which their enemies might possess for slandering them and disturbing the peace of the country. As the chief cause of sedition was diversity of religious opinion, Charles had acceded to the advice of two previous assemblies, and had granted a safe-conduct to the ministers of the new sect, hoping that an amicable conference with them would be productive of great advantage. He, therefore, prayed the company to receive them as a father receives his children, and to take pains to instruct them. Then, at all events, it could not be said, as had so often been said in the past, that the dissenters had been condemned without a hearing. Minutes of the proceedings carefully made and disseminated through the kingdom would prove that the doctrine they professed had been refuted, not by violence or authority, but by cogent reasoning. Charles would continue to be the protector of the Gallican Church.[1114]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots are summoned.]

[Sidenote: Beza's retort.]

These preliminaries over, the Protestants were summoned. Conducted by the captain of the royal guard, they entered and advanced toward the king, until their farther progress was arrested by a railing which separated the space allotted to the king and his courtiers, with the assembled prelates, from the lower end of the hall filled by a crowd of curious spectators.[1115] No place had been assigned the Protestants where they might sit during the colloquy on an equality with their opponents, the Romish ecclesiastics. They were subjected to the paltry indignity of appearing in the guise of culprits brought to the bar to be judged and condemned. In truth, the spirit of conciliation which L'Hospital had been at so much pains to inculcate had found little welcome in the breast of the prelates. "Here come the Genevese curs," exclaimed a cardinal as the reformers made their appearance. "Certainly," quietly retorted Beza, whose ear had caught the insulting expression, turning to the quarter whence it came, "faithful dogs are needed in the Lord's sheep-fold to bark at the rapacious wolves."[1116]

[Sidenote: Beza's prayer and address.]

When the twelve ministers had reached the bar, Theodore Beza, at their request, addressed the king: "Sire, since the issue of all enterprises, both great and small, depends upon the aid and favor of our God, and chiefly when these enterprises concern the interests of His service and matters which surpass the capacity of our understandings, we hope that your Majesty will not find it amiss or strange if we begin by the invocation of His name, supplicating Him after the following manner."

As the orator pronounced these words, he reverently kneeled upon the floor. His colleagues and the delegates of the churches followed his example. A deep solemnity fell upon the assembly. According to one account of the scene, even the Roman cardinals stood with uncovered heads while the Huguenot minister prayed. Catharine de' Medici joined with still greater devotion, while King Charles remained seated on his throne.[1117] After a moment's pause, Beza, with hands stretched out to heaven, according to the custom of the reformed churches of France,[1118] commenced his prayer with the confession of sins which in the Genevan liturgy of Calvin formed the introduction to the worship of the Lord's day.[1119]

"Lord God! Almighty and everlasting Father, we acknowledge and confess before Thy holy majesty that we are miserable sinners, conceived and born in guilt and corruption, prone to do evil, unfit for any good; who, by reason of our depravity, transgress without end Thy holy commandments. Wherefore we have drawn upon ourselves by Thy just sentence, condemnation and death. Nevertheless, O Lord, with heartfelt sorrow we repent and deplore our offences; and we condemn ourselves and our evil ways, with a true repentance beseeching that Thy grace may relieve our distress. Be pleased, therefore, to have compassion upon us, O most gracious God! Father of all mercies; for the sake of thy son Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Redeemer. And, in removing our guilt and pollution, set us free and grant us the daily increase of Thy Holy Spirit; to the end that, acknowledging from our inmost hearts our unrighteousness, we may be touched with a sorrow that shall work true repentance, and that this may mortify all our sins, and thereby bear the fruit of holiness and righteousness that shall be well-pleasing to thee, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Saviour.

"And, inasmuch as it pleaseth Thee this day so far to exhibit Thy favor to Thy poor and unprofitable servants, as to enable them with freedom, and in the presence of the king whom Thou hast set over them, and of the most noble and illustrious company on earth, to declare that which Thou hast given them to know of Thy holy Truth, may it please Thee to continue the course of Thy goodness and loving kindness, O God and Father of lights, and so to illumine our understandings, guide our affections, and form them to all teachableness, and so to order our words, that in all simplicity and truth, after having conceived, according to the measure which it shall please Thee to grant unto us, the secrets Thou hast revealed to men for their salvation, we may be able, both with heart and voice to propose that which may conduce to the honor and glory of Thy holy name, and the prosperity and greatness of our king and of all those who belong to him, with the rest and comfort of all Christendom, and especially of this kingdom. O Almighty Lord and Father, we ask Thee all these things in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Saviour, as He Himself hath taught us to seek them, saying: 'Our Father, which art in heaven, etc.'"[1120]

[Sidenote: His conciliatory remarks.]

Having concluded his petitions, Beza arose from his knees, and addressed the king. His speech was graceful and conciliatory.[1121] It was a great privilege, he said, for a faithful and affectionate subject to be permitted to see his prince, and thus to be more clearly impressed with the fealty and submission which is his due. Still happier was he if permitted to be seen by his prince, and, what was more important, to be heard, and finally accepted and approved by him. To these great advantages a part of Charles's very humble and obedient subjects, much to their regret, had long been strangers. It were sufficient ground for gratitude to God to the end of their days that now at length they were granted an audience before the king and so noble and illustrious a company. But, when the same day that admitted them into the royal presence also invited, or rather kindly and gently constrained them with common voice to confess the name of their God, and declare the obedience they owed Him, their minds were so incompetent to conceive, their tongues so inadequate to utter the promptings of their hearts, that they preferred to confess their impotence by modest silence rather than to disparage so great a benefit by the defect of their words. Yet one of the points they had so long desired was still unfulfilled, and that the most important, namely the acceptance of their service as agreeable. Would to God that so happy a termination might by their coming be put, not so much to their past sufferings—of which the memory was well-nigh extinguished by this joyful day—as to the troubles that had afflicted the kingdom in consequence of religious dissensions, and to the attending ruin of so great a number of the king's poor subjects.

[Sidenote: The Huguenots victims of calumny.]

[Sidenote: Their creed.]

[Sidenote: Points of agreement.]

[Sidenote: His declaration as to the body of Christ.]

What, then, had hitherto prevented the Huguenots from obtaining a boon so long and ardently desired? It was the belief entertained by some that they were, through ambition or restless love of innovation, the enemies of all concord, and the impression in the minds of others that their arrogance demanded impossible conditions of peace. The prejudice arising from this and other sources to which he avoided an allusion, lest he might seem to be reopening old wounds, was so strong, that the reformed would have good reason to give way to despair, were they not sustained by a good conscience, by their assurance of the gentleness and equity of Charles and the illustrious princes of the blood, and by a charitable presumption that the prelates with whom they had come to confer were disposed to exert themselves with them in the common endeavor rather to make the truth clear than to obscure it. Respecting the extent of the differences between the prelatic and the reformed beliefs, those who represented them as of insignificant importance, and those who made them as great as between the creed of Christians and the creed of Jews or Moslems, were equally mistaken. If in some of the principal articles of the Christian faith there was full agreement, on others, alas! there was an opposition between their tenets. The orator here enumerated in considerable detail the articles of the ancient creeds in which the Huguenot, not less than the Roman Catholic, professed his concurrence. What then, some one would say, are not these the terms of our belief? In what are we at variance? To which inquiry the true answer was, that the two sides differed not only because they gave some of these articles divergent interpretations, but because the Church had built upon this foundation a structure that comported little with it, "as if the Christian religion were an edifice which was never finished." To speak with greater detail, the reformed maintained, in opposition to the Romish theory, that there could be no satisfaction for sin save in Christ, and that to suppose the blessed Saviour to pay but a part of the price of man's salvation, would be to rob him of his perfect mercy, and of his offices of prophet, priest, and king. They agreed with the Romanists neither in their definition of justifying faith, nor in their account of its origin and effects. The same might be said respecting good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the word sacrament. The sacraments are visible signs by means of which our union with our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely signified or set forth, but is truly offered to us on the Lord's side, and therefore confirmed, sealed, and, as it were, engraved by the Holy Spirit's efficiency in those who by a true faith apprehend Him who is thus signified and presented to them. We, consequently, agree that in the sacraments there must necessarily supervene a heavenly, a supernatural change. For we do not assert that the water of holy baptism is simply water, but that it is a true sacrament of our regeneration, and of the washing of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ. So also we do not say that the bread is simply bread, but the sacrament of the precious body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was offered up for us. Yet we do not say that this change takes place in the substance of the signs, but in the use and end for which they are ordained." The reformer then touched upon the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation; both of which he rejected. "If then," he continued, "some one asks us, whether we make Jesus Christ absent from His Holy Supper, we answer that we do not. But, if we regard the local distance (as we must do, when His corporeal presence and His humanity distinctly considered are in question), we say that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth; since, as to ourselves, we are on the earth, and the sacraments also; while, as to Him, His flesh is in heaven, so glorified that his glory, as says St. Augustine, has not taken away from Him the nature, but only the infirmity of a true body."

[Sidenote: Outcry of the theologians of the Sorbonne.]

The last words of the sentence were inaudible, except to those who were close to the speaker. The words, "We say that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth," had fired the train to the magazine of concealed impatience and anger underlying the studied external calmness of the prelatical body. An explosion instantly ensued. The cry, "Blasphemavit! Blasphemavit Deum!" resounded from every quarter.[1122] Beza's voice was drowned in the noisy expressions of disapproval by which the theologians of the Sorbonne sought to testify their own unimpeachable orthodoxy.[1123] It seemed for the moment as if the ecclesiastics would continue their repetition of the words and actions of the Jewish high-priest in the ancient Sanhedrim, and break up the conference with the exclamation: "What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy." Some of the prelates arose as if to leave, and Cardinal Tournon went so far as to address himself to Charles and beg him either to impose silence upon Beza, or to permit him and his brother ecclesiastics to retire. But no notice was taken of his request.[1124] On the contrary, the queen and the Cardinal of Lorraine felt constrained to express their displeasure at this outburst of passion on the part of the prelates, and their desire that the conference should proceed.[1125]

[Sidenote: Beza's peroration.]

When the storm had somewhat spent its violence, and comparative silence had been restored, Beza, in no wise discomposed by the uproar, resumed his interrupted discourse. He deemed it unnecessary to dwell upon the matter of the administration of holy baptism, he said, for none could confound the reformers with the Anabaptists, who found no more determined enemies than they were. With respect to the other five sacraments of the Romish Church, while the reformed refused to designate them by that name, they believed that among themselves true confirmation was established, penitence enjoined, marriage celebrated, ordination conferred, and the visitation of the sick and dying practised, conformably to God's Word. The last point—the government of the Church—Beza despatched with a few words; for, appealing to the prelates themselves to testify to the results of their recent deliberations, he described the structure ecclesiastic as one in which everything was so perverted, everything in such confusion and ruin, that scarce could the best architects in the world, whether they considered the present order or had regard to life and morals, recognize the remains, or detect the traces of that ancient edifice so symmetrically laid out and reared by the apostles. He closed by declaring the fervent desire of those whose spokesman he was for the restoration of the Church to its pristine purity, and by making on their behalf a warm profession of loyalty and devotion to their earthly king. As he concluded, Beza and his associates again kneeled in prayer. Then rising, he presented anew to Charles the confession of faith of the reformed churches, begging him to receive it as the basis of the present conference between their delegates and the Romish prelates.[1126]

[Sidenote: Cardinal Tournon tries to cut short the conference.]

As soon as Beza had ended his speech, Cardinal Tournon, the oldest member of the Papal consistory in France, and presiding officer in the convocation of the prelates, rose, trembling with anger, and addressed the king. It was only by express command of Charles, he said, that the prelates had consented to hear "these new evangelists." They had hesitated from conscientious scruples, fearing, with good reason, as the event had proved, that they would utter words unworthy of entering the ears of a very Christian king, and calculated to offend the good people around him. It was for this reason that the ecclesiastical convocation had instructed him, in such case, humbly to entreat his Majesty to give no credit to the words of him who had spoken for "those of the new religion," and to suspend his judgment until he had heard the answer they intended to give. But for their respect for the king, he said, the prelates, on hearing the abominable blasphemies pronounced in their hearing, would have risen and broken off the colloquy. He prayed Charles with the greatest humility to persevere in the faith of his fathers, and invoked the Virgin Mary and the blessed saints of paradise that thus it might be.[1127]

[Sidenote: Catharine's decision.]

How long the age-stricken cardinal, the active persecutor of an entire generation of reformers, would have proceeded in his diatribe against the "blasphemy" of the Genevese doctor, is doubtful. He was cut short in the midst of it by the queen mother, who, in a decided tone, informed him that the plan of the conference had been adopted only after mature deliberation, with the advice of the council of state and by consent of parliament. No change or innovation was contemplated, but the appeasing of the troubles incident upon diversity of religious sentiment, and the restoration to the right path of such as had erred. The matter in hand was to demonstrate the truth by means of the simple Word of God, which should be the sole rule. "We are here," she said, "for the purpose of hearing you on both sides, and of considering the matter on its own merits. Therefore, reply to the speech of Sieur de Beze which you have just heard." "The speech was too long for us to undertake to answer it on the spur of the moment," responded Tournon, in a more tractable tone; but he promised that, if a copy of it were given to them in writing, a suitable refutation would soon be forthcoming on the part of the prelates.[1128] Thus the conference broke up for the day.

[Sidenote: Advantages gained.]

It could not be denied that Beza had spoken with great effect. For the first time in forty years the Reformation had obtained a partial hearing. The time-honored fashion of condemning its professors without even the formality of a trial had for once been violated; and, to the satisfaction of some and the dismay of many, it was found that the arguments that could be alleged in its behalf were neither few nor insignificant. The Huguenots had acquired a new position in the eyes of the court; that was certain. They were not a few seditious persons, who must be put down. They were not a handful of enthusiasts, whom it were folly to attempt to reason with. The child had become a full-grown man, whose prejudices—if prejudices they were—must be overcome by calm argument, rather than removed by chastisement.[1129] If the studied arrangement of the bar at the Colloquy of Poissy had been employed by the petty malice of their opponents in order to give them the aspect of convicted culprits, public opinion, unbiassed by such solemn trifling, regarded the disputants as equals in the eye of the law, and attempted to derive from the bearing of the champions some impression concerning the justice of their respective positions.

The change in the basis for the settlement of the controversy was not less apparent. For an entire generation the advocates of Protestantism had been pressing the claims of the Holy Scriptures as the ultimate authority for the decision of all doubtful questions. The only reply was a reference to the dogmas of the Church, and the demand of an unconditional submission to them. Beza had only reiterated the offer, made a thousand times by his fellow-reformers, to surrender at once his religious position should it be rendered untenable by means of proofs drawn from the Scriptures. Cardinal Tournon had again made the trite rejoinder of the clergy; but sensible persons were tired of the unsatisfactory repetition. Catharine had given expression to the peremptory requisition of all enlightened France when she announced the sole appeal as lying to the "simple Word of God."

[Sidenote: Brilliant success of Beza.]

From this exhibition of his brilliant oratorical powers, and from those displays that shortly followed, Theodore Beza acquired the highest reputation both with friend and foe. Even those who would have it that "he deceived the people," that his acquirements were superficial, that he lacked good judgment, and, on the whole, had "a very hideous soul," could not help admitting that he was of a fine presence, ready wit, and keen intellect, and that his excellent choice of language and ready utterance entitled him to the credit of eloquence.[1130] On the other hand, nothing could exceed the admiration and love excited by his ardent espousal of their cause in the breasts of the Protestants in all parts of the kingdom. His appearance at Poissy became their favorite episode in recent history. His portrait was hung up in many a chamber. He was almost adored by whole multitudes of Frenchmen,[1131] as one whom noble birth, learning, and brilliant prospects had not deterred from following the dictates of his conscientious convictions; whom security in a foreign land had not rendered indifferent to the interests of the land of his birth; whose persuasive eloquence had won new adherents to the cause of the oppressed from among the rich and noble; who had maintained the truth unabashed in the presence of the king and "of the most illustrious company on earth."

[Sidenote: His frankness justified.]

Nor will the candid student of history, if he but consider the attitude of the prelates at the colloquy of Poissy, be more inclined than were the Protestants of his own day to censure Theodore Beza for any degree of alleged injudiciousness exhibited in that celebrated sentence in his speech which provoked the outburst of indignation on the part of Tournon and his colleagues. What, forsooth, had their reverences come to the colloquy expecting to hear from the lips of the reformed orators? If not the most orthodox of sentiments—more orthodox than many sentiments whose proclamation had been tolerated in their own private convocation—was there not a moderate allowance of hypocrisy in their pretended horror at the impiety of the heretic Beza? For certainly it was scarcely to be anticipated by the most sanguine that he would profess an unwavering belief in the transmutation of the substance of the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ that suffered on the cross; seeing that for a little more than a third of a century those of whom he was the avowed representative had, it must be admitted, pretty clearly testified to the contrary on a thousand "estrapades" from the Place de Greve to the remotest corner of France. Surely this extreme sensitiveness, this refined orthodoxy, unable to endure the simple enunciation of an opinion differing from their own on the part of an avowed opponent, savored a little of affectation; the more so as it came from prelates whose solicitude for their flocks had been manifested more in the way of seeking to obtain as large a number of folds as possible, than in the way of giving any special pastoral supervision to one, and who found a more congenial residence at the dissolute court where pleasures and preferment could best be obtained, than in obscure dioceses where a rude peasantry were thirsting for instruction in the first rudiments of a Christian education. The truth was—and no one was so blind as not to see it—that the Romish prelates had come determined to seize the first good opportunity to break up the colloquy, because from the colloquy they had good reason to apprehend serious injury to their interests. Nothing short of a complete betrayal of his cause by Beza could have precluded this.[1132] Had he been never so cautious, he could not have avoided giving some handle to those who were watching him so closely. Not the nature of the sentiment he expressed, but the danger lest the prelates might take advantage of it to refuse peremptorily to proceed with the colloquy, was the true ground of Catharine's displeasure.[1133] In order to remove this, so far as it might be based upon any misapprehension of the import of his words, Beza addressed to the queen, on the next day, a dignified but conciliatory letter of explanation.[1134]

[Sidenote: The prelates' notion of a conference.]

A full week elapsed before the Cardinal of Lorraine was ready to make his reply. Meantime the prelates had met, and had resolved that, instead of embracing a discussion of the entire field of controversy between the two churches, the conference should be restricted to two points—the nature of the church and the sacraments. It was even proposed that a formula of faith should be drawn up and submitted to the Protestant ministers. If they refused to subscribe to it, they were to be formally excommunicated, and the conference abruptly broken off. Such was the crude notion of a colloquy conceived by the prelates. No discussion at all, if possible![1135] Otherwise only on those points where agreement was most difficult, and it was easiest to excite the odium theologicum of the by-standers. On the other hand, when this came to the ears of the Protestants, they felt constrained to draw up another solemn protest to the king against the folly of making the prelates judges in a suit in which they appeared also as one of the parties—a course so impolitic that it would rob the colloquy of all the good effects that had been expected to flow from it.[1136]

[Sidenote: September 16th.]

[Sidenote: Peter Martyr arrives.]

[Sidenote: The Cardinal of Lorraine's reply.]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots to wait for their faith to grow old.]

The remonstrance was not without its effect. On the next day, the sixteenth of September, the same assemblage was again gathered in the conventual refectory of Poissy, to hear the reply of the Cardinal of Lorraine. The reformers appeared as on the previous occasion; but their ranks had received a notable accession in the venerable Peter Martyr, just arrived from Zurich. The prelates had, it is true, objected to the admission of a native of Italy; for the invitation, it was urged, had been extended only to Frenchmen. But the queen, who had greeted her distinguished countryman with flattering marks of attention, interfered in his behalf, and, at the last moment, announced it to be her desire that he should appear at the colloquy.[1137] The same trickery that had brought Beza to the bar, in order to give him the appearance of a criminal put upon trial, rather than that of the representative of a religious party claiming to possess the unadulterated truth, assigned Charles of Lorraine a pulpit among his brother prelates, where, with a theologian more proficient in theological controversy at his elbow, he could assume the air of a judge giving his final sentence respecting the matters in dispute.[1138] His long exordium was devoted to a consideration of the royal and the sacerdotal authority, each of which he in turn extolled. Then passing to the particular occasion of the convocation of so goodly a number of archbishops, bishops, and theologians—to all of whom he professed himself inferior in intelligence, knowledge, and eloquence—he expressed most sincere pity for the persons who a week ago had, by the king's command, been introduced into this assembly—persons long separated from the prelates by a discordant profession of faith and by insubordination, but showing, according to their own assertions, some desire to be instructed by returning to this their native land and to the house of their fathers, who stood ready to receive and embrace them as children so soon as they should recognize the Church's authority. He would utter no reproaches, but compassionate their infirmity. He would recall, not reject; unite, not separate. The prelates had gladly heard the confession of faith the Huguenots had made, and heartily wished that, as they agreed in the words of that document, so they might also agree in the interpretation of its articles. Dismissing the consideration of the remaining points, as requiring more time than could be given on a single day, the cardinal undertook to prove only two positions, viz.: that the Church is not an invisible, but a visible organization, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is really and bodily present in the Holy Supper. He then called upon the reformed ministers, if, in their views respecting the eucharist, they could accord neither with the Latin Church, nor with the Greek, nor with the Lutherans of Germany, at least to seek that solitude for which they seemed to long. "If you have so little desire to approach our faith and our practice," he said, "go also farther from us, and disturb no longer the flocks over which you have no legitimate charge, according to the authority which we have of God; and, allowing your new opinions, if God permit, to grow as old as our doctrine and traditions have grown, you will restore peace to many troubled consciences and leave your native land at rest." He urged Charles to cling steadfastly to the faith of his ancestors, of whom none had gone astray, and who had transmitted to him the proud title of "Very Christian" and of "First Son of the Church." He exhorted the queen mother and his other noble hearers to emulate the glorious examples set for their imitation by Clotilde, who brought Clovis to the Christian religion, and by their own illustrious ancestry; and he concluded by declaring the unalterable determination of the ecclesiastics of the Gallican Church never to forsake the holy, true, and Catholic doctrine which they preached, and to sustain which they would not spare their blood nor their very lives.[1139]