III.
The situation of the Reformers grew worse, in spite of the reiterated declarations of the council respecting the faithful execution of the edicts. Their rights were continually disregarded in the courts of justice, in the nominations to public offices, hospitals, the dole of alms, places of worship, everywhere and wherever it was possible to vex and harass them without too openly violating the laws.
In the States-General, assembled in 1614, the orator of the Tiers-parti spoke in favour of toleration. But the clergy and even the nobility gave the meeting to understand that, sooner or later, the king would fulfil the oath of his coronation, by which he had promised to expel all heretics denounced by the Church from the countries of his jurisdiction. Cardinal Duperron declared that the edicts were only provisional or suspensive, and that all that had been granted was a simple reprieve to rebellious subjects.
It would be difficult in our time to conceive to what extent the demands of the clergy against heretics proceeded, on being preferred to the king, after they had deliberated upon them in their general assemblies. They embraced a prohibition to write against the sacraments of the Romish church and the authority of the pope; prohibition to keep schools in the cities, and even in the suburbs of episcopal towns; prohibition for the ministers to enter hospitals to console the sick of their communion; prohibition for foreigners to teach anything but (Roman) Catholicism; prohibition for the judges of chambers, equally divided by an equality of votes, to adopt the less rigorous sentence; lastly, a speedy interdiction of all exercise of the pretended Reformed religion. These demands were periodically renewed, with clauses increasingly harsh and oppressive, until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and afterwards down to 1787. It was not until the great voice of the nation raised itself in the Constituent Assembly, that that of the priests was finally silenced.
The project of a double marriage—between the young king with an infanta of Spain, and of the prince of the Asturias with a daughter of France—a project supported by the Holy See—redoubled the fears of the Huguenots. It was generally rumoured that one of the conditions of the alliance between the two courts, was the destruction of heresy, and the (Roman) Catholic preachers took this as the text of their sermons. “If the Jesuits,” wrote Duplessis-Mornay to the chancellor De Sillery, “preach without circumlocution, that the design of this double marriage with Spain is to be the extirpation of heresy, can any one be surprised that our churches should take alarm, and that the minutes of the assemblies should speak of it?”
The Prince de Condé, a bigoted (Roman) Catholic, as we have seen, tried to turn the disquietude of the Calvinist party to the advantage of his personal cause, by invoking the memory of his father and grandfather. He published a manifesto in 1615, in which he told the Reformers that the Edict of Nantes would be abolished, and that the king’s only object in collecting his troops was their extermination. These provocations carried away some gentlemen of the political assemblies of Grenoble and Nismes. The Duke de Rohan took the field on the side of Saintonge; but the body of the Calvinists, including Lesdiguières, Châtillon, Sully, and Mornay, did not rise. The last wrote on this occasion, that “a negotiation would be renewed, by means of which the prince would be contented; while their churches would remain behind, loaded with all the odium, and perhaps also with the war itself.” This is exactly what happened. Condé made his peace with the court, without any regard for the position or the interests of his allies.
A more serious event—the oppression of the Reformation in Béarn—occurred to furnish more weighty motives for the recommencement of the wars of religion.
The principality of Basse-Navarre and Béarn, annexed to France by Henry IV., was more closely re-united in 1617. Three-fourths of the population, some say nine-tenths, belonged to the Reformed communion. They were nevertheless ordered to reinstate the priests in all the ecclesiastical property which had been applied, since the year 1569, to the use of the churches, schools, hospitals, and poor.
The Jesuit Arnoux said that this property “belonged to God, who was its owner,” and that consequently no one had the power or the right to take it.
The States of Béarn, the nobility, the magistrates of the towns, the people, all protested energetically, but in vain. The king took the field at the head of an army, and the Béarnese not being able to oppose more than a short resistance, he entered the town of Pau on the 15th October, 1620. He remained there no longer than two days, “for there was no church there,” says an historian of the time, “where he might thank God, from whom he held this inheritance, and he therefore went to have the mass chanted before his soldiers, at Navarreins, where it had not been solemnized for fifty years previously. Bishops, abbots, and curates re-entered into possession of the property of the church, the Jesuits taking a goodly share.”
The course of the royal troops was marked with cruel violence. “Nothing was heard to escape from the mouth of the most moderate,” says Elie Benoît, “but threats of exemplary punishment; of hanging, decapitating, and abolishing the Reformed religion throughout the whole kingdom, which they called accursed; of banishing all who professed it, or of compelling them to wear some badge of infamy.” The soldiers shattered the doors of the churches, demolished the walls, tore the books and the tables where the commandments of God were written. They robbed and maltreated the peasants with their staves and their swords, who came to the market of Pau, adjudging them beforehand to be all Huguenots. They forced the Reformers, who fell into their hands, to make the sign of the cross, and to kneel when the procession [of the host] passed by. The women dared not venture into the streets.... Some, who were with child, they compelled to swear to baptize their infants at the Romish church. “Children were carried off, the parents knew not whither, or how to recover them; and all this was done under the eyes of the king, who refused even to listen to the complaints of the injured. In the other parts of the country, the soldiers lived as they pleased; publicly told that the king had given the Huguenots up to them for pillage, they expelled the ministers, outraged their wives, and drove men and women to mass with blows and with curses.”[75]
Such was the first essay of the dragonnades, which system was before long to be perfected and extended under the reign of Louis XIV.
The indignation of the churches on the news of the persecutions in Béarn may be imagined. It was not this time the great lords of the party who cried for warlike measures. They saw too well that the Calvinists, doubly weakened by their internal dissensions and their defections, would not be able to make head against the king.
Some pastors also advised the Reformers to remain quiet. Pierre Dumoulin, who exercised great authority among the Consistorialists, wrote, after the national synod of Alais, of which he had been the moderator, that all ought to endure with patience the renewed strokes of the enemy. “If we must be persecuted,” said he, “all those who fear God desire that it should be for the profession of the Gospel, and that our persecution should truly be the cross of Christ.”
But the people of the Huguenots, seconded by the lesser nobility, and by the burghers of La Rochelle, would not hearken to this pacific counsel. Had not the king forsworn in Béarn the oaths he had taken at the assembly of Loudun? Was not the cause of the Béarnese the cause of all? Would not they be obliged to suffer likewise on the first occasion? Did not the advisers of Louis XIII. incite him to make an end of the Huguenots without delay? Was not their extermination preached from all the (Roman) Catholic pulpits? And was it not better to take counsel of their despair, than to wait in fatal security for their death-blow?
These sentiments were dominant in the political assembly convoked at La Rochelle in the month of December, 1620. The king had sent an usher to prohibit the deputies of the churches from meeting, and the inhabitants of La Rochelle from receiving them. When the usher had performed his mission, the magistrates of the town replied to him: “Since you have executed your orders, you will quit this place as soon as possible.”
The noblemen of the party still essayed to act as mediators between the court and the assembly. The dukes de Rohan, de Soubise, and de la Trémouille, had an interview at Niort with some of the deputies. Duplessis-Mornay exerted in these negotiations all the power and influence he possessed. But the difficulties appeared insurmountable. The king’s council ordered the assembly to dissolve immediately, and the assembly would not separate until they had obtained the redress of their grievances, and solid guarantees for the free exercise of their religion. On one side it was said: “Return home, and you shall have satisfaction.” On the other it was replied: “Give us satisfaction, and we will return home.” Mornay, in speaking of the assembly of Loudun, had well stated this twofold position: “The king orders them to dissolve, and promises to act; we beseech him to act, being ready to dissolve.”
The debate had no result, because on either side there were after-thoughts. The council wished at least to destroy the political organization of the Reformers, and the latter maintained it with obstinate constancy, under the full persuasion, not without reason, that on such political organization their religious liberty depended.
The assembly of La Rochelle, tired of transmitting to the court justifications and useless petitions, passed, at length, on the 10th of May, 1621, by a majority of six or seven votes, a resolution, bold even to rashness, and which breathed the republican spirit of the people of La Rochelle. The measure went far beyond the rights granted by the Edict of Nantes, and however bad were the designs of the council, it cannot be approved of.
France, with regard to the Reformers, was divided into eight departments or circles, an expression borrowed from the political establishment of Germany; and each circle was to be placed under the government of one of the leaders of the party. The supreme authority was confided to the Duke de Bouillon. The governors might levy money, appoint to offices, organize armies, and give battle. Three deputies of the assembly were to assist in the councils held by the general-in-chief and the military commanders. Lastly, the assembly reserved to themselves the power of concluding treaties of peace.
This organization, however, had more of appearance than reality. The Duke de Bouillon remained neutral. The Marshal de Lesdiguières was on the point of embracing (Roman) Catholicism. The Duke de la Trémouille, and the Marquis de Châtillon, grandson of Coligny, were wavering, and soon about to exchange the command of the Huguenots for the bâtons of marshals. The Marquis de la Force dreaded an open rupture with the court. The Duke de Sully was anxious for quiet. Mornay refused to take part in this recourse to arms. There were among all the leaders but the Duke de Rohan, and his brother, the Duke de Soubise, who showed themselves disposed to throw their whole fortunes into the new wars of religion.
Nor did the provinces that had been divided into circles, reply with a unanimous voice to the appeal of the assembly Picardy, Normandy, the Orleanais, the Isle of France, where the number of Reformers was small, even Poitou and Dauphiny, where they were more numerous, refused to take up arms. All the efforts of resistance were concentrated in Saintonge, Guienne, Quercy, and the two provinces of Languedoc.
The regulations adopted by the assembly of La Rochelle, for the maintenance of religion and good order in the army, are deserving of mention, as an interesting trait of manners. Pastors were to say prayers and preach daily to the soldiery. The troops were forbidden to swear, under pain of a fine proportioned to the rank of the delinquent; a teston for a private, a crown for an officer. Heavier penalties awaited any who brought women into the military encampments. The protection of agriculture and commerce was enjoined. Prisoners were placed under the safeguard of the council. These regulations proved that the assembly of La Rochelle were anxious to honour this new war; but their execution required a fervent piety, that had already become rare at that time.