History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

CHAPTER XII.

THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY AND THE EDICT OF JANUARY.

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: Théodore de Bèze, 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; François de Saint Paul, a learned theologian and the founder of the churches of Montélimart, a delegate from Provence; Jean Raymond Merlin, professor of Hebrew at Geneva, and chaplain of Admiral Coligny; Jean Malot, pastor at Paris; François de Morel, who had presided in the First National Synod of 1559, and had recently been given to the Duchess Renée of Ferrara, as her private chaplain; Nicholas Folion, surnamed La Vallée, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, now pastor at Orleans; Claude de la Boissière, of Saintes; Jean Bouquin, of Oléron; 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.

Assembly in the nuns' refectory.

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 Béarn; 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 Châtillon, 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.

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]

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]

The Huguenots are summoned.

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]

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]

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.

The Huguenots victims of calumny.

Their creed.

Points of agreement.

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."

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]

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]

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]

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 Bèze 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.

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."

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."

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 Grève 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]

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]

September 16th.

Peter Martyr arrives.

The Cardinal of Lorraine's reply.

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]

Tournon's new demand.

Beza asks a hearing.

Such was the substance of the speech of Charles of Lorraine, so long heralded by his brother ecclesiastics and by the devout Roman Catholics of the land as the sure refutation of all the heresies which the reformers might advance. It was fitting that some signal proof of its success should be given. Scarcely had Lorraine ceased when the whole body of prelates arose and gathered around the throne. Tournon was again their spokesman. He declared the full approval with which the Gallican bishops regarded the address of the Cardinal of Lorraine. They were ready, if need be, to sign it with their own blood, for it was in accordance with the will of Christ and of his bride, our Mother Holy Church. They begged Charles to give it full credit, and persevere in the Catholic faith of his fathers. Let the Protestants sign what the cardinal had said, as a preliminary to their receiving further instruction. If they refused, let Charles purge his very Christian realm of them, so that there might be only "une foy, une loy, un roy."[1140] He was followed at once by Theodore Beza, who, on the contrary, urged his Majesty to grant him the liberty of replying on the very spot to the arguments of his opponent. But Catharine, after a brief consultation with the members of the royal council seated near her, denied the request, and adjourned the discussion until another occasion.[1141]

Advancing shadows of civil war.

The opportunity thus promised, however, seemed distant and doubtful. The determination of the prelates to have nothing to do with any project for a fair and equal conference was undisguised, and rumors were frequent and ominous that the queen would yield before their resolute attitude. The decision of the reformers, under these circumstances, was soon taken: it was, that, if these repeated delays were persisted in, they would leave the court, protesting against the injustice which had been manifested to them and to their cause.[1142] Yet their anxiety was great. That dark cloud of portentous aspect could be descried by all sharp-sighted observers. It was the approaching storm of civil war, every moment rising higher above the horizon.[1143] Even now its advent was heralded by the anarchy pervading entire provinces—a righteous retribution for the sanguinary legislation and the yet more barbarous executions ordered by the courts of law, to repress the free action of the human intellect in the most noble sphere in which its energies could be exercised—the region of religious thought.

Another conference reluctantly conceded, September 24th.

Beza's reply to the Cardinal of Lorraine.

Claude D'Espense.

Claude de Sainctes.

Another tedious week passed by. Again, in view of the threats of an abrupt termination of the colloquy, the Huguenot ministers petitioned Charles to give them a patient hearing; reminding him of the distance they had come—some of their number even from foreign lands, relying on his royal word for a friendly interview with the prelates of his kingdom—in order to exhibit the inveterate abuses which the Pope and his agents had introduced into the Church. Other remonstrances of like tenor followed.[1144] At last, with great reluctance,[1145] the twenty-fourth of September was selected for a third conference. The obstinate resistance of the Romish ecclesiastics gained them one point. The public character of the colloquy was abandoned.[1146] The large refectory was exchanged for the small chamber of the prioress. The king was not present. Catharine presided, and Antoine and Jeanne d'Albret, with the members of the royal council, replaced the more numerous assemblage of the previous occasions. Instead of the crowd of prelates whose various and striking dress formed a notable feature of the colloquy, there appeared five or six cardinals, about as many bishops, and fifteen or sixteen theologians of the Sorbonne, laden with thick folios—the writings of the Fathers of the first five centuries, with which the Cardinal of Lorraine still professed his ability to confute the Reformed.[1147] Again the twelve Huguenot ministers were admitted; but the lay deputies of the churches were excluded.[1148] The discussion was long and desultory. Beza began by replying to the first part of the cardinal's speech, and showed that there is an invisible as well as a visible church, and that the marks of the true church are the preaching of God's Word and the right administration of the sacraments. Not a succession of ministry from the apostles, but a succession of doctrine is essential.[1149] He was followed by a theologian of the Sorbonne, Claude D'Espense, who, after making the gratuitous admission that he wholly disapproved of the persecutions to which the Protestants had been subjected,[1150] attempted to prove that the Protestant ministers had no "calling" to their office, and that recourse must be had to tradition to explain and supplement the Holy Scriptures. When Beza was about to reply, the floor was seized by a coarse Dominican friar, one Claude de Sainctes, who in a scurrilous speech went over much of the same ground, and, waxing more and more vehement, did not hesitate to assert that tradition stood on a firmer foundation than the Bible itself, which could be perverted to countenance the most opposite doctrines.[1151] An hour and a half of precious time was wasted by this unseasonable interruption, which had disgusted friend as well as foe. Then Beza, after remonstrating against the long and irregular character of the discussion, proceeded, amid frequent interruptions, to set forth the views of the reformers respecting the extraordinary vocation which they had received.

Lorraine demands subscription to the Augsburg Confession.

Beza's home thrust.

But this portion of the debate was soon closed by the Cardinal of Lorraine, who, declaring that the doctrine respecting the Church had been sufficiently considered, proposed the question of the sacraments, asserting that the prelates refused to proceed with the conference until this should be settled. He then demanded of the ministers whether they would subscribe to the Augsburg Confession, which was received by the Protestants of Germany. His object was manifest. He had long since resolved on adopting this course, with the view of either setting the French reformers at war with their brethren beyond the Rhine, or sowing dissension in the ranks of the Huguenots themselves. Beza, however, was not unprepared for the question. He replied by asking whether the cardinal was himself ready to give the Augsburg Confession his unqualified approval. The wily prelate parried this home thrust, and still persisted in his inquiry. Under these circumstances, could the reformers have relied upon the fairness of the conduct of the conference, their course would have been clear. But, aware that their distinct refusal to consider a formula which their opponents were not themselves prepared to adopt would be seized upon as a welcome pretext for abruptly breaking off the colloquy, Beza, after declaring that he and his brethren were deputed by the French churches to maintain their own confession, and that this document alone furnished the proper subject for debate, asked that a copy of the articles which they were required to sign might be furnished him for the deliberation of his fellow-ministers. The request was granted; and, as the session ended, a short extract was handed to him, which asserted the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament, and its actual reception by those who partook of the holy ordinance.[1152]

Alternatives presented to the Huguenots.

September 26th.

Beza claims fair play

Two days later the colloquy was renewed. The delay, which had at first been a source of annoyance to the ministers, was now recognized by them as a providential interference in their behalf. What they had only surmised, they now learned with certainty from trustworthy friends. Their hesitation to sign the Augsburg Confession was to be used as a convenient handle for breaking up the conference; their refusal, for involving them in a quarrel with Protestant Germany; their consent, for causing their expulsion from the churches they had betrayed, or splitting those churches up into many parts.[1153] Theodore Beza opened the discussion by reading the reply which he had carefully prepared by common consent of all his brethren. Never had his oratorical skill been exhibited to better advantage. He began by showing the evident impropriety of introducing, as his opponents had done in the last conference, a discussion of the validity of the divine vocation of the Protestant ministers; for they had come here to confer, not to officiate—much less to witness the institution of the semblance of a penal prosecution against them. The objectionable character of such a debate would be the more manifest, should he address any supposed bishop with whom he was disputing and who had inquired: "By what authority do you preach and administer the sacraments?" and retort by asking him in turn: "Were you elected by the elders of the church of which you are bishop? Did the people seek for you? Were inquiries first made respecting your life, your morals, and your belief?" or, "Who ordained you? How much did you pay him?" The answers to such questions would make many a bishop blush. Beza next reminded the cardinal of his promise to confute the Protestants by the testimony of the Fathers of the first five centuries. For a discussion based upon them the ministers had come prepared. But now he brought them a single article on the Lord's Supper, and imperiously said: "Sign this, or we will proceed no farther!" Even were the Huguenots prisoners brought before him for trial, they would not be so treated. Their very office required the prelates to speak differently, for the bishop must be "able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers."

and an amicable conference.

Then turning to the queen mother, Beza reminded her that he and his companions were there, not only for the purpose of submitting a confession of their faith, but to serve God, Charles, and herself, by laboring in all possible ways to appease the troubles that had arisen in connection with religion. To dismiss them without giving them an opportunity for an amicable conference would not be the means of allaying the prevailing disturbances; and those who proposed to do so knew it well. Were the handful of Protestants at Poissy the only persons concerned, there might, in the world's eye, be little likelihood that danger would result from treating them as their enemies desired. But it might please her Majesty to consider that they were here in behalf of a million persons in this realm, in Switzerland, Poland, Germany, England, and Scotland, who watched the proceedings of the colloquy, and who would be astonished to hear, as they would hear, that, instead of such a conference as had been promised, the ministers had received the tenth part of an article, and had been told: "Sign this; otherwise we will proceed no farther." What would be gained if the Protestants did sign it; for, did the prelates agree in the Augsburg Confession? If there was a real desire to confer, let persons be appointed who were willing to meet the Protestants, and let them examine together the Holy Scriptures and the old Fathers of the Christian Church, with the books before them, and let secretaries write out the results of the discussion in an authentic form. Then it would be known that the ministers had not come to sow troubles, but to promote accord.[1154]

Lorraine's anger.

The prelates were much excited when Beza concluded. His reference to episcopal elections stung them to the quick. Lorraine angrily accused him of insulting not only the sacerdotal, but the royal authority, since it was Francis the First that had taken away the election of the priesthood from the people.[1155] Beza, replying, said that this very act was an evidence of the radical disturbance of the ancient order, when avarice, ambition, and unworthy rivalry between monks and canons rendered such a change necessary. Pressed again to sign the article submitted two days before, Beza persisted that it was unjust to endeavor to compel the Protestants to subscribe to that to which the prelates refused their own indorsement.[1156]

Peter Martyr and Lainez the Jesuit.

The discussion was next carried on between the doctors of the Sorbonne and Beza and Martyr. The latter spoke in Italian,[1157] and won universal applause; but he was rudely interrupted by the Cardinal of Lorraine, who said that he did not want to hear a foreign language. A little later, a Spaniard, Lainez, the second general of the rising order of Jesus, who had just reached Paris in the train of the Cardinal Legate of Ferrara, begged permission to speak. Leave was granted him, and he indulged in an address much more remarkable for its coarse invective than for its weight of argument.[1158] Not content with dissuading his hearers from listening to the Protestant ministers as persons already sufficiently convicted of error, he called them apes and foxes,[1159] and advised that they be sent to Trent, where the Pope had convoked a free council to which they might have free access. He condemned the French for holding a separate council, and reprobated the discussion of topics of such importance as those now under consideration in the presence of women, and of men trained to war. After these gentle hints respecting the qualifications of the queen and his noble auditors to act as judges, he approached the all-absorbing question of the real presence—a feeble part of his speech in which we may be excused from following him. The remainder of the day was spent in warm debate, which continued until the approach of night. Just as all were rising and about to leave, however, the queen called to her Beza and the Cardinal of Lorraine, and adjured them in God's name to strive for the establishment of peace. A knot of friends gathered around each; the conference was renewed amid much confusion and noise; but the darkness soon necessitated an adjournment.[1160]

Close of the Colloquy of Poissy.

It was the last day of the Colloquy of Poissy. If anything more had until now been needed to demonstrate the futility of all hopes based upon an open discussion regulated solely by the caprice of the Cardinal of Lorraine, it was certainly furnished by the experience of the last session. Catharine, however, was loth to abandon the scheme from which she had expected such important results to flow. With her usual incapacity to understand the strength of religious convictions deeply implanted in the soul, she still hoped to secure, from a private interview of the more moderate Roman Catholics with a few of the leading Protestants, a plan of agreement that might serve to unite both communions. Some of her more conscientious advisers shared in the same sanguine expectations.

A private conference.

The Roman Catholic champions.

The Abbé de Salignac.

Five Roman Catholic ecclesiastics were chosen to confer with as many Protestant ministers. They were selected as well for learning and ability as for reputed moderation of sentiment.[1161] The Bishops Montluc of Valence, and Du Val of Séez in Normandy, the Abbé's de Salignac and Bouteiller, and D'Espense, doctor in the Sorbonne, were probably all believed to be half inclined to fall in with the reformatory current. Of Montluc and D'Espense, mention has already more than once been made. Bouteiller, it will be remembered, was the priest who had officiated in the Cardinal of Châtillon's episcopal palace at Beauvais, the last Easter preceding, when the communion was administered under both kinds, "after the fashion of Geneva."[1162] Salignac was a timid man, a fair sample of the "Nicodemites," who had proved the bane of the Reformation in France. For thirty years he had held, and to some extent—if we may credit his own words—professed the same doctrines as Calvin, continually exhorting his hearers to turn from an empty, formal worship, to Christ as the only Saviour. Confessedly he had not rejected "that false doctrine"—for thus he did not hesitate, in his private correspondence with a Protestant, to designate the Romish creed—so openly as the reformers were wont to do; but he claimed to have won the universal approval of the best men around him by his attacks upon "Babylon," which he had approached sometimes "by mines," sometimes "in open warfare," according to time and circumstances.[1163] Since no violent opposition seems ever to have been made, no persecution ever to have arisen against Salignac, and in view of the fact that the conflict of the last thirty years had been sufficiently sanguinary and little calculated to reassure timid combatants, it is highly probable that the prudent abbé's subterranean operations greatly outnumbered his more valiant exploits. Well might the reformers, who knew that victory was to be obtained, not by burrowing under the ground, but by facing the perils of the battle-field, exclaim:

Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget.

Conference at St. Germain.

A discussion of words.

Theodore Beza, Peter Martyr, Angustin Marlorat, Jean de L'Espine, and Nicholas des Gallars, were appointed to represent the Protestants, and it was arranged that secretaries should be present at the conferences to note the progress made toward unity. The ten theologians met in the apartments of the King of Navarre, at St. Germain. Their conclusions were to be submitted to the Protestant ministers and delegates present at the court, and at the same time carried to Poissy for ratification by the still assembled prelates. Both parties were in earnest in seeking for common ground on which they might stand. Compelled by the instructions the bishops had received, to commence with the knotty question of the eucharist instead of adopting the more natural order of the articles of the confession of faith, the Romish party inquired whether, abandoning discussion for the time, both sides might not agree on the formula which had been drawn up and approved by four of their number on the twenty-fifth of September, or on some similarly moderate statement. The question, so far as the formula they referred to was concerned, was promptly answered by Peter Martyr. The Zurich reformer, somewhat apprehensive, as he had lately shown, lest his colleagues should, in their eagerness for accord, make something approaching a sacrifice of doctrine, greatly to their surprise drew from his pocket a paper which he proceeded to read: "I reply, for my part, that the body of Christ is truly and substantially nowhere else than in heaven. I do not, however, deny that Christ's true body and his true blood, which were given on the cross for the salvation of men, are by faith and spiritually received by the believing in the Holy Supper."[1164] A friendly but laborious discussion, not of ideas nor of doctrines, but of words, ensued. At length a statement was drawn up sufficiently comprehensive, yet sufficiently general to admit of being approved in good conscience by the entire number of theologians.[1165] But the prelates of Poissy promptly rejecting the article, the next day it was necessary to renew the deliberation. A second form of agreement was drafted,[1166] which the Roman Catholic deputies felt confident would meet with the approval of those who had sent them.

Premature delight of the queen mother.

The article rejected by the prelates.

Their demand.

Although the article itself was to be kept secret until submitted to the prelates, the tidings that a harmonious result had been reached rapidly flew through the court and was carried to Catharine herself. Beza and Montluc were summoned into her presence. In the excess of her joy at the prospect of the peaceful solution of a difficult problem, and of an issue of the colloquy which would greatly conduce to her glory and the firmer establishment of her rule, Catharine even cordially embraced the reformer, and bade him go on in the good way he and his companions had entered. Beza, not blind to the difficulties that still beset their path, replied that their highest desires were for truth and peace, but that a good beginning only had been made.[1167] The Cardinal of Lorraine, after reading the article, expressed the belief that the prelates of Poissy would be pleased,[1168] and for his own part seemed to regard the Protestants as having surrendered the entire ground of controversy to the Roman Catholics.[1169] But both queen and cardinal were soon undeceived. The assembled prelates rejected the modified article with scorn, treating with insult the deputies that brought it, as having betrayed their cause and played into the hands of the reformers.[1170] Under these circumstances a continuation of the conference would have been absurd. The Roman Catholic deputies, despairing of any good fruits from their efforts at conciliation, never returned; and the last vestige of the colloquy, on which such brilliant anticipations had been based, vanished into thin air.[1171] The prelates themselves continued to sit for a few days. A committee of three bishops and sundry doctors of the Sorbonne, to whom the article agreed upon by the Roman Catholic and Huguenot delegates was submitted for examination, pronounced it (on the sixth of October) to be incomplete, dangerous, and heretical. Three days later the prelates published a formal condemnation of it, offered a definition which they declared to be orthodox, and called upon the king to require Beza and his companions either to sign this new formula, or to consult the public peace by leaving France altogether. A long series of canons, in which the question of church discipline was touched lightly, and that of doctrine not at all—the paltry result of more than two months of sufficiently animated,[1172] if not very harmonious discussion—was at the same time given to the world.[1173]

Catharine's financial success.

From a political point of view, the assembly of the prelates at Poissy had not been unprofitable to the government. Alarmed by the radical projects of the wholesale confiscation of ecclesiastical property which had found no little favor with the other orders at Pontoise, equally alarmed by the possibility of being compelled to enter into a full and fair discussion with the champions of the Protestant doctrines, the wealthy dignitaries of the Gallican Church brought themselves, not without a severe struggle, to purchase exemption from these perils by a pecuniary concession which delighted the perplexed financiers of France. They pledged themselves to pay, by semi-annual instalments, the entire sum needed for the redemption of the royal domain which had been alienated to satisfy the public creditors.[1174] But in return they demanded important equivalents. The first item was that the severe "Edict of July" should be made perpetual and irrevocable. This request Catharine and the council denied. To declare that odious law, which it had never been possible to carry into execution in several provinces of France, a part of the fundamental constitution, would be a gratuitous insult to the Huguenots, and would precipitate the country instantly into the abyss upon the verge of which it was already hanging.

Order for the restitution of the churches.

The other demands of the bishops it seemed more practicable to grant. They required that Charles should by solemn edict order the instantaneous restitution of the churches seized by the Huguenots. In spite of the earnest protest of Beza,[1175] the government (on the eighteenth of October) complied with the request.[1176] Within twenty-four hours after the receipt of this edict, all persons who had taken possession of churches were commanded, on penalty of death as rebels and felons, to vacate them, restoring whatever valuables they had removed, and replacing the images and crosses they had destroyed. At the same time the prohibition of the use of insulting language and acts was renewed, and both parties were bidden to place their arms in the hands of the local magistrates.[1177] Thus, to use Beza's language, was Christ betrayed, but at a much dearer price than that for which he was, centuries ago, sold by Judas—for sixteen millions of francs instead of the thirty pieces of silver.[1178] Having, by extorting the Edict of Restitution, succeeded in paving the way for renewed commotions, soon to culminate in open and widespread war, the prelates adjourned, with mingled satisfaction and disgust, toward the end of October, 1561.[1179]

Arrival of five German delegates.

The conference of Poissy had scarcely been definitely abandoned when five German Protestants appeared upon the scene. Three of these—Andreä, Beuerlin, and Balthasar Bidembach—had been sent by the Duke of Würtemberg; the others—Bouquin and Dilher—by the Elector Palatine. Early in the summer, the King of Navarre, anxious to strengthen himself by enlisting in his favor the Protestant princes of Germany, had expressed to them the desire, in which Catharine coincided, that some theologians—learned and pious men, and inclined to peace—should be sent from beyond the Rhine to take part in the adjustment of the religious questions at the Colloquy of Poissy. The Protestant electors, the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Duke of Würtemberg, were unable, however, to agree on the instructions to be given to the envoys. While the duke, devotedly attached to the doctrines of Luther, was bent upon strongly recommending the adoption of the Augsburg Confession, the other princes could not acquiesce in his plan. The landgrave refused to throw additional difficulties in the way of the reformed churches of France, just emerging from a period of relentless persecution, and seeking for the public recognition of the right to worship God, for which so many martyrs had cheerfully laid down their lives. The Elector of Saxony distrusted the sincerity of the intentions of the French court. As for the Count Palatine, he himself had embraced the reformed theology, and could not be expected to urge the Huguenots to give up their own well-digested confession for one which they considered far inferior to it in all respects.[1180] And so it happened that, in consequence of a diversity of sentiment regarding both doctrine and policy, there was no general deputation sent to France, and the delegates of the two princes who complied with the invitation arrived at Paris after the colloquy—too late to do any harm, if not soon enough to do much good. They were courteously received by the court. The Würtembergers, in particular, were allowed frequent opportunities of explaining the merits of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Before their return into Germany, they were distinctly informed by Navarre that, while he recommended a closer union between the two branches of the Protestant Church, his own views accorded with those of the adherents of the Augsburg Confession; and that his only reason for delaying to subscribe to it was a fear lest this step might interfere with the execution of the union he desired to effect.[1181]

Why the colloquy proved a failure.

The Colloquy of Poissy had proved, so far as the objects contemplated by its originators were concerned, a complete failure. Instead of drawing the Roman Catholic and the reformed churches together, it had only widened the breach separating them. Instead of exhibiting in a clearer light the common ground on which a union might be practicable, it had rendered patent to all the antagonism which could not be cloaked by ambiguous phrases and incomplete statements of doctrine. It is certainly worth while to inquire into some of the causes of a result so unexpected to a great number of intelligent men, who had framed their anticipations upon no superficial view of the subject.

Catharine's crude notion of a conference.

The crude notions of the court respecting the character which such a conference ought to assume must be regarded as one of these causes. Catharine, while extending the most gracious invitations to foreign Protestants, was herself apparently undecided how to treat the Huguenots when they should make their appearance. Even if we grant that her explanations of the object of the projected colloquy, referred to on a preceding page,[1182] received their coloring from the fact that she was supplying her ambassador in Germany with plausible representations wherewith to appease such irritated bigots as feared that the French queen intended to propose a grave discussion of the religious question upon its own merits, yet the entire course of the conference exhibits her inability to comprehend the nature of a fair debate of the matters in dispute. The Huguenot ministers and delegates were obliged to petition that the prelates should not be permitted to act as their judges, and afterward to remind her of the promise she had given them to this effect. Even after the point had been nominally accorded, the most important questions respecting the conference were decided in the council, where five cardinals and three bishops had seats.[1183] Under these circumstances it is not astonishing that Lorraine assumed a tone of superiority which his relation to the debate by no means warranted.

Character of the prelates.

Besides this, the character of the assembly of prelates itself precluded the possibility of an adjustment. With the exception of six or seven, so insignificant were these ecclesiastical dignitaries individually, that, as a modern historian has well remarked, not one distinguished himself sufficiently to be named by any of the writers who treat of the conference. They were, generally, the younger sons of the most distinguished families in France, and had entered the church not from devotion, but in consequence of an immemorial custom which consigned to the episcopal dignity or to a rich abbacy the youth whom an elder brother debarred from entertaining the hope of succeeding to his father's dignities and possessions. Few of them had ever seen their dioceses save on some great festival; none possessed the literary or theological training necessary to qualify them for coping with the master-minds among the Protestants. Accordingly, each bishop had to come to Poissy with one or more "theologians," doctors of the Sorbonne, to whose better judgment and superior learning he was content to defer on every disputed point. There was little probability that a body thus constituted would consent to enter into a candid consideration of the differences separating the Roman Catholic and Protestant worlds.[1184]

Influence of the papal legate.

The despondent nuncio, Viterbo.

But the single event said by an eye-witness and actor in these scenes to have conduced more than any other to destroy all hope of agreement, was the arrival at court of the papal legate, Ippolito D'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara.[1185] Pope Pius IV. had long been watching the affairs of France with deep solicitude. If his legates, Tournon and Lorraine, had failed to alarm him by their reports of the progress of the "new doctrines," he could not but be troubled by the accounts which came from his nuncio in France, Sebastiano Gualtieri, Bishop of Viterbo. Gualtieri, an experienced diplomatist, learned, eloquent—and not wanting in cunning,[1186] if we may believe his successor in office—had proved himself unequal to the duties of his present position, by giving way to extreme despondency. In the gay capital of France he led a wretched life, in constant dread of future disaster, and ceaselessly uttering lugubrious prognostications. To the Pope he announced that religious matters in France were desperate; everything was rushing to ruin with ever-increasing velocity. The queen mother was unsound in the faith, although, from motives of policy, she dissembled her true sentiments. She favored a preacher, one Bouteiller, who was equally unsound; and she refused to dismiss him when admonished of her error. He begged the pontiff to recall him, so that he might not witness the funeral obsequies of the unhappy kingdom.[1187]

Anxiety of Pope Pius IV.

The Nuncio Santa Croce.

The Cardinal of Ferrara.

Pius, rendered more apprehensive by these continual tidings of evil, and displeased with much that his legates had done,[1188] could no longer delay to take decided action. Accordingly, he resolved to grant Gualtieri's request, and to send as apostolic nuncio in his place Santa Croce, Bishop of Pisa, who had formerly occupied this position at Paris, but was now acting in a similar capacity in Portugal.[1189] But so grave did the conjuncture appear in the eyes of the papal court, that, at a solemn consistory held on the twenty-eighth of June, the resolution was adopted to despatch a third legate to St. Germain! The pretext of this extraordinary mission was the desire to testify more clearly than the selection of the two previously existing legates had done, to the earnestness of the solicitude felt at Rome for the interests of the Church in France.[1190] The true reason would appear to have been to correct the mistakes which the existing legates were supposed to have committed. For the delicate post of legatus a latere, no better candidate could be found than the Cardinal of Ferrara. Although a man of no high intellectual abilities, he had received a thorough training in the Macchiavellian theory of politics,[1191] and, during many years of diplomatic service, had enjoyed a fair opportunity for schooling himself in its practical workings. The son of Lucretia Borgia, the grandson of Pope Alexander the Sixth, could scarcely help being an adept at intrigue. Next to this special qualification, his highest recommendations were that he was the brother-in-law of Renée of France, and so by marriage uncle of the Duke of Guise; and that he had twelve good reasons for feeling deep concern for the steadfastness of French orthodoxy, viz.: the three archbishoprics, the one bishopric, and the eight rich abbeys which he held within the confines of Charles's dominions, deriving therefrom an income which was popularly estimated at from forty to sixty thousand crowns.[1192]

Master Renard turned monk.

The new legate accepted the appointment with alacrity. Not so the nuncio. It was no small trial to leave the quiet court of Lisbon—where his predecessors had been accustomed, during a short stay of a year or two, to accumulate a handsome fortune[1193]—for the turmoil of the French capital, threatened every day with the outbreak of civil war, where nothing but censure and hatred could be reaped.[1194] But Santa Croce did not hesitate long to renounce his golden prospects, and almost at the same moment that the Cardinal of Ferrara started from the banks of the Tiber, the Bishop of Pisa set forth from the gates of Lisbon. Neither legate nor nuncio, however, was in much haste to reach his destination. Ferrara could plead ill-health, Santa Croce the prostrating heat of the season.[1195] It took each of the prelates two months and a half to accomplish his journey—the legate reaching the French court on the nineteenth of September, the nuncio toward the end of the same month.[1196] The former travelled in great magnificence, with a brilliant escort of four hundred horsemen or more, and accompanied by several bishops and other persons of distinction, among whom was Lainez, the Jesuit, whose acquaintance we have already made. Avoiding the larger French cities where the Reformation had gained a foothold, and where, consequently, marks of popular insult were apprehended,[1197] he received a brilliant welcome at the court, the king's brother Henry, and others, riding out to greet him at his approach. The people were less cordial. His assumed devotion could not deceive those who knew him to be a devotee of pleasure.[1198] His appearance forcibly reminded them of the old story of Master Fox turned hermit, and cries of "Au Renard! Au Renard!" were so loudly uttered when he was seen in the streets preceded by an attendant carrying a large silver cross, the badge of his office, that he was soon fain to discard the obnoxious emblem.[1199] This was not the only insult he was compelled to swallow. A portrait of his grandfather, Pope Alexander the Sixth, was engraved and published, with an account of his life and death, in which the moral character of Lucretia Borgia was painted in the darkest colors.[1200] It was, however, speedily suppressed by the civil authorities.

Opposition of people and chancellor.

The plenary powers which the papal commission conferred upon Ippolito d'Este created an opposition even in higher circles. He had, it is true, apprehending an unfavorable reception, taken the pains to invite the French ambassador at Venice to confer with him while he was stopping in Ferrara on his way to Paris, and had assured him that he went with the sole intention of subserving the interests of France, and would use the powers given him by the Pope no farther than Charles desired.[1201] This and reiterated assurances of the same tenor, after his arrival, did not remove the scruples of Michel de l'Hospital. The latter insisted that the authority which the Pope pretended to confer upon his legate was in direct contravention of the resolution of the recent States General, that ecclesiastical benefices should henceforth be at the disposition, not of the Pope, but of the prelates in their respective dioceses, and that no papal dispensations should hereafter be received. He therefore declined to give to the pontifical warrant the official ratification without which it was of no validity in the kingdom; and he was supported in his refusal by the majority of the royal council. He was, however, overruled. It would be highly improper, the Cardinal of Ferrara persuaded Catharine and her advisers to believe, that a prelate allied to the royal house of France should be the first legate to be denied the customary honors. And so L'Hospital, after receiving a direct order from the king, and having had several altercations with the legate, reluctantly affixed the great seal of France, taking care to relieve himself of all responsibility by writing below it the words, Me non consentiente. This addition for the present rendered the document entirely useless, for parliament promptly refused to receive or register that which had failed to meet with the chancellor's approbation.[1202]

The legate's successful intrigues.

His excessive complaisance.

The first great aim of Ferrara was to prevent the assembly of prelates at Poissy from assuming in any degree the character of a national council by undertaking a genuine reformation of doctrine or practice, and to induce the reference of all such questions as ought there to have been discussed, to the Council of Trent.[1203] How well he succeeded was shown by the event. By purposely delaying his arrival until the assembly had convened, he avoided the defeat that he might have experienced had he been on the spot and opposed its opening.[1204] He was sufficiently early, however, to effect all that was really of moment. His manners were conciliatory and paved the way for his intrigues. Catharine was the more friendly both to him and to Santa Croce, because of the contrast between their deportment and that of Gualtieri, whom she hated for his sour disposition and boorish ways.[1205] Navarre and the princes suspected of a leaning toward Protestantism were plied with other arts. In fact, so well did the legate counterfeit liberality of sentiment, that even the Pope and his brethren of the Roman consistory seem to have become a little alarmed. For he went so far, on one occasion, as to accompany the Huguenot nobles to hear the sermon of one of their ministers, greatly to the displeasure of the Pope and of Philip the Second, as well as of the Cardinal of Tournon and other bigots at the French court who could not follow the tangled thread of his tortuous policy.[1206] It was difficult for him to convince them that he had made this extraordinary concession simply in order to induce Antoine and his more intractable queen in their turn to attend the Roman Catholic services. Navarre was naturally the person whom legate and nuncio were most anxious to influence. For, respecting Catharine, they soon satisfied themselves that, if she was not a very ardent Romanist, she was nothing of a Protestant.[1207] The King of Navarre, however, was to be gained only by skilful and concerted diplomacy. Easy to be duped as he was, he had met with so many disappointments that he required something more than vague assurances to induce him to throw away the solid advantages derived from still being the reputed head of the Huguenots. For about this time his agents at Madrid and at Rome had been coldly received. Philip and his minister Alva excused themselves from paying any attention to his claims upon Navarre or an equivalent, until Antoine had shown more decided devotion to Catholicism than was afforded by simply attending mass, and they had made it evident that armed intervention in behalf of the French adherents of the old faith was rather to be expected from the Spaniard, than any act of condescension in favor of the titular king. From Rome he had scarcely obtained more encouragement than from Madrid.[1208] Under these circumstances, it seemed that little was needed to make his alienation from Romanism complete.

Antoine of Navarre plied with suggestions.

While, therefore, the Spanish ambassador, Chantonnay, brother of Cardinal Granvelle, by his severity and his continual threats of war not only discouraged the Navarrese king, but rendered himself so hateful to the court that his presence could scarcely be endured,[1209] the papal emissaries, to whom the Venetian Barbaro lent efficient aid, allured him by brilliant hopes of a sovereignty which Philip, induced by the Pope's intercessions, would confer upon him. Convinced that the destruction of all hope of recovering Navarre from the Spanish king would instantly cause Antoine to throw himself without disguise into the arms of the Calvinists, and would thus secure the speedy triumph of the Reformation throughout all France,[1210] they even persuaded Chantonnay to abate somewhat of his insolence, and to ascribe his master's delay in satisfying Antoine's requests to Philip's belief that his suppliant was confident of being able to frighten the Spaniards into restitution.[1211] They represented to Antoine himself that his only chance of success lay in devotion to the Catholic faith. Joining arms with "those flagitious men" the Huguenots, he would arouse the hostility of almost all Christendom. The Pope, the priests, even the greater part of France, would be his enemies. In a conflict with them he could place little reliance upon troops unaccustomed to war and drawn from every quarter—none at all upon the English, who were ancient enemies, or upon the Germans, who fought for pay. Better would it be for him to secure but half his demands by peace, than to lose all by trying the fortunes of war.[1212]

How thoroughly the legate and nuncio, with the assistance of their faithful allies, the Spanish ambassador and the Guises, Montmorency and St. André, were successful in seducing the unstable King of Navarre from his allegiance to the Protestant faith, this, and the disastrous results of his defection, will be developed in a subsequent part of our history.

Contradictory counsels.

The triumvirate retire in disgust.

The edict of the eighteenth of October, for the restitution of the churches of which the Huguenots had taken possession, was by no means an exponent of the true dispositions of the court. It was rather a measure of political expediency, reluctantly adopted, to attain the double end of securing the pecuniary grant of which the government stood in pressing need, and of preventing Philip from executing the threats of invasion which Alva had but too plainly made in his interview with the French envoy extraordinary, Montbéron d'Auzances, and the ambassador, Sebastien de l'Aubespine[1213]—threats which nothing would have been more likely to convert into stern realities than the concession of the churches for which the Protestants clamored. It was a measure determined upon by a royal council in which the influence of the party inclined to Protestant and liberal principles was preponderant; in which the advice of the moderate Chancellor L'Hospital was supreme; in which the plans of the Guises, of Montmorency and St. André, were set aside, to make room for those of Condé and Montluc, Bishop of Valence. It is this fact that furnishes the clue to a circumstance which at first sight seems an inexplicable paradox, namely, that almost the very day on which the intolerant resolution, compelling the Huguenots to surrender the churches, even in places where they constituted the vast majority of the population, was adopted, the members of the triumvirate, formed for the express purpose of upholding the papal church in France, left the court in disgust. It was scarcely to be expected that these ambitious nobles, accustomed to occupy the first rank, and to dispose of the national concerns according to their own private pleasure, should submit with good grace to the decisions of a council in which the Bourbons held the sway, and a hated chancellor's opinions were followed whom they themselves had raised to his elevated position. Much less was it natural for them to remain when the measures which the administration proposed were of enlarged toleration, instead of greater repression. Accordingly, the Duke of Guise left Saint Germain for Joinville, one of his estates on the borders of Lorraine, while his brother, the cardinal, repaired to his archbishopric of Rheims. Here, while pretending to apply himself with unheard-of diligence to his duties as a spiritual shepherd, and preaching, as was reported, rather the Lutheran than the Romish view of the eucharist, he was making bids as high as those of the duke, if of a different kind, for the favor and support of the neighboring German princes who adhered to the Confession of Augsburg. Catharine, not sorry to be rid of their presence, and "best pleased when the world was discordant," gave them a kind dismissal. The elements were less propitious. An extraordinarily severe storm that swept over St. Germain on the day of their departure gave rise to a report among the courtiers that "the devil was carrying them off." It was little suspected, quaintly remarks the narrator of this incident, how soon he was going to bring them back![1214] Cardinal Tournon and Constable Montmorency followed the example of the Guises, and went into retirement.

Hopes entertained of the young king.

Charles's curiosity respecting the mass.

The prospect was at this moment as dark to the papal party as it was full of encouragement for the Huguenots and their sympathizers. Nothing but a resort to violence could avert the speedy downfall of the authority of the Roman pontiff in France. A few months more of peace, and everything might be lost.[1215] If the young king continued under the influences now surrounding him, he might become a Huguenot openly, as it was pretty well understood, by those who had the opportunity of seeing him daily and noting his words and actions, that he was already half inclined to be one now. The Queen of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, and the leading Protestants at court perceived this and could not hide their delight. One day about this time, Jeanne D'Albret drew the English ambassador apart from the courtiers waiting upon her, and, having seated him by her side, related a conversation she had within the past few days held with Charles. It is thus reported by Throkmorton in a despatch to Queen Elizabeth: "Good aunt," said the king, "I pray you tell me what doth this mean, that the king, my uncle, your husband, doth every day go to mass, and you come not there, nor my cousin, your son, the Prince of Navarre? I answered (quoth the queen), Sire, the king, my husband doth so because you go thither, to wait upon you and obey your order and commandment. Nay, aunt (quoth he), I do neither command nor desire him to do so. But if it be naught (as I do hear say it is), he might well enough forbear to be at it, and offend me nothing at all; for if I might as well as he, and did believe of it as he doth, I would not be at it myself. The queen said, Why, sir, what do you believe of it? The king answered, The queen, my mother, Monsieur de Cipierre, and my schoolmaster doth tell me, that it is very good, and that I do there daily see God; but (said the king) I do hear by others that neither God is there nor the thing very good. And surely, aunt, to be plain with you, I would not be there myself. And therefore you may boldly continue and do as you do, and so may the king, my uncle, your husband, use the matter according to his conscience for any displeasure he shall do unto me. And, surely, aunt (quoth he), when I shall be at my own rule I mean to quit the matter! But I pray you (said the king), keep this matter to yourself, and use it so that it come not to my mother's ears."[1216]

It need not occasion surprise that the Queen of Navarre paused, in the midst of her expressions of intense gratification, to give utterance to the fear that Charles might be "too toward, too virtuous, and too good to tarry amongst them," or recalled the many similar "acts and sayings of the late King Edward of England, who did not live long."[1217]

Beza is begged to remain.

When the first intimation of the edict for the restoration of the churches reached Beza, his impulse was to abandon forthwith a court where his hopes had been so cruelly disappointed, and a want of proper confidence had been displayed by his very friends among the royal counsellors. But his indignant remonstrances were met by the assurance that benevolent designs for the Reformation were concealed beneath the apparent harshness of the law, which was a necessary concession to certain circumstances. He was entreated to be of good courage and to remain. Catharine joined her solicitations to those of Condé, Admiral Coligny, and other chiefs of the Protestants. Beza reluctantly consented, and while Martyr was suffered to depart with courteous acknowledgments of his services, the Genevese was still more honorably retained at court.[1218] The new measure from which brilliant results were expected was the calling of an assembly of notables, including representatives from each of the parliaments, the princes of the blood, and members of the council, etc., which was to meet in December, and to suggest some decree on the subject of the religious question, of a provisional, if not of a permanent character.[1219]

Spanish plot to kidnap the Duke of Orleans.

The Huguenot churches in France.

About the same time, upon a rumor that the Duke of Nemours, a faithful ally of the Guises, had plotted to carry off the young Duke of Orleans, the future Henry the Third, into Spain, with the view of affording his brother-in-law Philip a specious pretext for interfering in Trench affairs,[1220] Catharine de' Medici turned to the Protestants, and inquired what forces of theirs she could rely upon in the threatened contest with the Spanish, Papal, and German Roman Catholic troops. Her question elicited the significant fact that there were two thousand one hundred and fifty Huguenot churches in France, varying in size from a mere handful of believers to a community of thousands of members, embracing almost the entire population of a provincial city, and under the guidance of several pastors. In the name of these churches a petition was presented to the king, asking for places of worship, and loyally tendering life and property in his defence.[1221]

Beza secures a favorable royal order.

To restrain the impatience of so numerous a body as the Protestants, while waiting for the assembly of the notables which was to confer the full measure of liberty they desired, was the task imposed upon Beza. He was to serve as a hostage for the obedience of the reformed churches.[1222] But the sagacious theologian recognized the difficulty of the position he was called to fill. He warned the government accordingly against disappointing the hopes it aroused in the breasts of his fellow Protestants, and he urged that if they must be temporarily denied the use of the places of worship which they had occupied wherever they constituted the bulk of the population, the present rigor must be somewhat abated during the interval before their formal emancipation. After much importunity a mandate was obtained, addressed to the royal officers, in which they were instructed to interpret the previous edicts with leniency, permitting different degrees of liberty, according to the various circumstances in which they were placed. In Normandy and Gascony the religious meetings might be open and unrestricted. In Paris they must be held secretly in private houses, and not more than two hundred persons could be gathered together.[1223] Everywhere, however, the Protestants were to be protected, and this was a great step gained. For those very officers, whose task it had not unfrequently been to drag the Huguenots to prison, were now constituted the guardians of their lives and property.[1224]

How to restrain Huguenot impetuosity.

Foix.

Châlons-sur-Marne.

Yet, how to restrain the impetuosity, how to check the demands of the multitudes recently converted to the reformed faith, how to induce them to give up the churches where whole generations of their ancestors had worshipped before them, and in which they believed that they had the clearest right of property, and hand them over to a mere handful of ignorant or interested persons who would not listen to reason or Scripture—this was the problem that seemed even beyond the power of Beza's wit to solve. The young vine, in whose branches the full sap of spring was rapidly circulating, must have room for healthy growth. From all parts of France the constant cry was for the Word of God and for liberty. Although the number of daily attendants on Calvin's lectures was roughly estimated at a thousand,[1225] it was impossible for Geneva to supply the drafts made upon her, when there were three hundred parishes, apparently in a single province, which had thrown off the mass, but had as yet been unsuccessful in their quest of pastors;[1226] when the history of hundreds of towns and villages was the counterpart of the history of Foix, where, in two months, an infant church of thirty or forty members had grown to have five or six hundred, and the Protestant population was almost in the majority in the town, although as yet, notwithstanding incessant efforts to obtain a pastor, the only public service consisted of the repetition by a layman of the prayers contained in the liturgy of Calvin[1227]—when many a minister met with success similar to that which attended Pierre Fornelet, who could point to fifteen villages in the vicinity of Châlons-sur-Marne, begging for Huguenot pastors, and all this the fruit of seven weeks of apostolic labours; and could record the fact that poor men and women flocked to the city from a distance of seven or eight leagues, when they simply heard that the Gospel was preached there[1228]—when it was estimated by competent witnesses that from four to six thousand ministers could be profitably employed within the bounds of the kingdom.[1229]

Troyes.

Paris.

In some places, by strenuous exertion, the ministers were successful in persuading their flocks to refrain from overt acts tending to provoke outbursts of hostility. At Troyes, in Champagne, a thousand persons convened by day or by night, not summoned by the sound of bells, but quietly notified by an "advertisseur" of the daily changing place of meeting. Yet even there, on Sunday and on public holidays, the Huguenots took pains to hold their "assemblée" in the open day, before the eyes of their enemies.[1230] At Paris, the Protestants, compelled to go some distance into the country for worship, on their return (Sunday, the twelfth of October), found the gates closed against them, and were attacked by a mob composed of the dregs of the populace. Many of their number were killed or wounded. The assailants retreated when the Huguenot gentry, with swords drawn, rallied for the defence of their unarmed companions, whom they could not, however, guarantee from the stones and other missiles hurled at them. For a few days the public services were intermitted at the earnest request of the Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon, in the interest of good order and to prevent disturbance.[1231] But a month later the Huguenots assembled openly, and in still greater numbers. On reaching the suburbs, the women were placed in the centre, with the men who had come on foot around them, while those who were mounted on horseback shielded the whole from attack. A body of guards was posted by the prince in the immediate neighborhood.[1232]

Montpellier.

Churches visited and stripped.

In the south of France the people were less easily curbed, and the indiscretion or treachery of their enemies often furnished provocation for acts which the sober judgment of their pastors refused to sanction. The chapter of the cathedral of Montpellier, with the view of overawing the city, had, in October, introduced a garrison into the commanding Fort St. Pierre. On a Sunday (the nineteenth of October) the Protestants laid siege, and on the succeeding day the chapter entered into a composition with the citizens, by which the canons retained the liberty of celebrating their services, but bound themselves to lay down their arms and dismiss the soldiers they had called in. When, however, a soldier, as he was leaving, drew a pistol and killed one of the Protestants, the fury of the latter could not be repressed. They cried that treacherous designs were on foot, and madly killed many of the canons and their sympathizers. Then, directing their indignation against the churches, where the doctrine that no faith need be kept with heretics had been inculcated, they overturned in a few hours the work of four or five centuries. The next day, of sixty churches and chapels in Montpellier or its neighborhood, not one was open. Not a priest, not a monk, dared to show his face. Yet this same excitable populace, which had been wrought up to frenzy by a soldier's treacherous act, submitted without resistance when, on the twentieth of November, Joyeuse, in the king's name, published the obnoxious edict for the restitution of all churches within twenty-four hours. The cathedral was given up, and the services according to the rites of the reformed church were held in the spacious "École mage," until, by a new arrangement with the canons, the Protestants were once more put in possession of two of the old ecclesiastical edifices. Yet the edict did not arrest the rapid progress of the new faith. The mass was not reinstated, and the small Roman Catholic minority remained at home on the feast-days. Even the lowest class of the population—elsewhere, from ignorance and prejudice, the stronghold of the papal religion—here seemed to share in the universal tendency, and, unfortunately, as a local chronicler, to whom we are indebted for these particulars, informs us, took no better way of testifying its devotion than by "mutilating sepulchral monuments, unearthing the dead, and committing a thousand acts of folly." Carrying their hatred of everything that reminded them of the period of judicial abuse to the length of detesting even the insignia of office, the people compelled the ministers of the law to doff their traditional square cap and assume a hat such as was worn by the rest of the population.[1233] Thus the strength of the reformatory current could be gauged by the mud and rubbish which it tore from the banks on either side—an addition to its bulk that contributed nothing to its power, while marring its purity and sullying its fair antecedents. A class of persons attached themselves to the Huguenot community that could not be brought into subjection to the discipline instituted with such difficulty at Geneva. It would seem invidious to lay their excesses to the account of the Huguenot leaders, whether religious or political, since those excesses met with the severe reprobation of the latter.[1234]

The rein, and not the spur, needed.

Marriages and baptisms at court, "after the fashion of Geneva."

"Would that our friends might restrain themselves at least for two months!" was the ejaculation of Beza, in view of the natural impatience exhibited on all sides. "I fear our own party more than I do our adversaries."[1235] The rein was needed, not the spur. When, instead of two hundred persons, the Parisian assemblies of Huguenots often consisted of six thousand, a fanatical populace, accustomed for a whole generation to see the very suspicion of Lutheranism expiated in the flames of the Place de Grève or of the Halles, could ill brook the sight of such open gatherings for the reformed worship. How much greater the popular indignation when it became known that Chancellor L'Hospital had authorized two places for public worship according to the rites of the reformed churches, in the neighborhood of the Gate of St. Antoine and the Gate of St. Marceau! Added to these palpable proofs of the court's complicity with the heretics, was the no less scandalous fact that marriages and baptisms, celebrated "after the fashion of Geneva," were of frequent occurrence; that the nuptials of young De Rohan, cousin of Antoine of Navarre, and Mademoiselle de Brabançon, niece of the Duchess d'Étampes, had been performed on St. Michael's Day, and in the presence of Condé and the Queen of Navarre, by Theodore Beza himself; and that in a masquerade in the royal palace Charles the Ninth had worn a cap which bore an unmistakable resemblance to a bishop's mitre![1236]

Tanquerel's seditious declaration.

While legate and nuncio labored to put an end to these hateful manifestations by personal solicitation addressed to Catharine, to Cardinal Châtillon, and others,[1237] the priests and monks were no less active in stirring up the passions of the people to open resistance. In the scholastic halls of the Collége de Harecourt, one Tanquerel, a doctor of the Sorbonne, enunciated the dangerous maxim that "the Pope can depose heretical kings and emperors." At this menacing declaration, which, under a king in his minority and a regency divided in its sentiments on religious questions, was much more than a theoretical abstraction, the government took alarm. The Parliament of Paris investigated the offence, and the doctrine of Tanquerel was severely condemned. Tanquerel himself having fled from the city to avoid the consequences of his rashness, the Dean of the Sorbonne was required, by order of the supreme court, to utter in his name a solemn recantation in the presence of the assembled theologians and of a committee of parliament; and two theologians were deputed to St. Germain to beg the king's forgiveness.[1238]

Jean de Hans.

The preachers were not behind the doctors in the use of seditious language. They attacked the government and its entire policy; and one of their number—Jean de Hans—while delivering Advent discourses in the church of St. Barthélemi, in the very neighborhood of the palace, so distinguished himself for the extravagance of his denunciations, that he was arrested and carried off to the court at St. Germain. Yet such was his well-known popularity with the Parisians, that it was found necessary to effect his capture by a troop of forty armed men; and the powerful intercession made in his behalf induced the government to forget his disrespectful language respecting the princes, and to release him after barely a week's imprisonment.[1239]

Philip threatens to interfere in French affairs.

"A true defender of the faith."

Courteville's mission to Flanders.

Unfortunately, Tanquerel's treasonable thesis and Hans's excited declamation were not mere harmless speculations which might never be of any practical importance to the state. The King of Spain had taken the pains to inform the queen mother that he had fully made up his mind to interfere in the affairs of France, and to enforce Catholic supremacy at the point of the sword. She might accept or decline the offers of the self-appointed champion of orthodoxy; but, if she declined, he was resolved none the less to afford his succor to any true friend of the Church that chose to request it. Timid and irresolute Catharine, who desired to steer clear of the Scylla of Spanish intervention quite as much as of the Charybdis of Huguenot supremacy, trembled for the security of her unballasted bark. But the watchful old man who sat on St. Peter's reputed seat was thrown into a paroxysm of delight. When the Ambassador Vargas handed him a copy of the message his master had sent to St. Germain, Pope Pius paused a moment, after he had read the undisguised threat, then burst out with a flood of benedictions on the head of the Spanish king. "There," he cried, "is a truly Catholic prince, there a true defender of the faith! I expected no less of him."[1240] And Philip intended to carry his menaces into effect. On the twenty-fifth of October his secretary, Courteville, left Madrid, ostensibly on a visit to his infirm father in Flanders, but in reality intrusted with a very important commission, which, in an age when it was no uncommon thing for a messenger to be waylaid and robbed of his despatches, could scarcely be otherwise discharged. He was to make diligent inquiries of Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, as to the actual condition of the provinces, and the material support they could give the undertaking upon which Philip has set his heart. While passing through Paris he was to confide his dangerous secret to the Ambassador Chantonnay, and instruct him to support any of the Roman Catholic nobles that might show a disposition to rise,[1241] or to instigate them to action by the promise of Philip's support. Neither Margaret nor Chantonnay, however, could fulfil the monarch's desires. The former thought that Philip had thrown away the golden opportunity by failing to interfere while the question of Catharine's and Navarre's claims to the administration was in dispute, and when the number of sectaries was much smaller than at present; and by the time Courteville reached Poissy, where Chantonnay was stopping, the assembled nobles had dispersed to their homes, and the Guises were practically farther from Paris than from Brussels. So the execution of Philip's plan, both agreed, must be deferred for some time.[1242]

The ill-starred Medici family.

The Venetian envoy's lugubrious account of France.

It could not be denied that the situation was critical in the extreme. Long-headed diplomatists of the conservative school shook their heads ominously. They hinted that there might be only too much truth in the current Catholic saying that the Medici family was destined to be fatal to Christendom. Under Leo the Tenth Germany was lost to the papacy, under Clement the Eighth England had apostatized, and now under Pius the Fourth, a third Pope of the same ill-starred race, France was on the brink of ruin. The king was a boy, without experience and without authority, the council full of discord, the supreme power in the hands of the queen, who, though sagacious, was yet only a woman, and both timid and irresolute. The King of Navarre, while noble and gracious, was a prince of little constancy and limited practice in government. The people were in disorder and manifest division. Everywhere there were seditious and insolent men, who, under the pretext of religion, had disturbed the general peace, overturned customs and discipline, and put in doubt the royal authority and the safety of all. Oh, that Philip the Second had the courage of his father, or that Charles the Fifth had had his son's glorious opportunity—then would France be France no longer![1243] For just so certainly as the Spanish king was looked upon with suspicion by the rulers, was he longed for by all that hated the present state of things, and, most of all, by the prelates and the rest of the Catholics, who knew not in what other quarter to look for salvation.[1244]

Romish complaints of Huguenot boldness.

It was not possible that peace should long be maintained under such circumstances. It could not be but that the Huguenots, conscious of their growing numbers, confident of the near approach of the day when their rights were to be formally recognized, and impatient of the fetters with which their enemies still attempted to embarrass their progress, would assert their rights from day to day with increasing boldness. The priests and the rabble, on the other hand, regarded this new courage with suspicion, and interpreted every action as springing from insufferable insolence. They were on the watch to detect fresh examples of Huguenot audacity. They complained of the numbers that flocked to hear the reformed preachers, of the arms which some carried for self-defence—a precaution not very astonishing in view of the excited feelings of the Parisians and the frequent outbursts of their fury, and still less extraordinary on the part of the "noblesse," who were accustomed to wear a sword at all times. They went so far as to assert that the Huguenot multitude usurped the entire pavement, and were become so overbearing that they were ready to pick a quarrel with any one that presumed "to look at them." A peaceable Catholic must needs, to avoid abuse and hard blows, show more skill in getting out of their way than he would in shunning a mad dog. The streets resounded with their profane psalm-singing, and ill fared it with the unlucky wight that ventured to remonstrate, or dared to find fault with their provoking use of meat on the prohibited days. He was likely to have a broken head for his pains, or be shut up in prison by judges who sympathized with the "new doctrines."[1245] The court, however, more correctly ascribing the disturbances that occurred on such occasions to the attacks made upon the Protestants by their opponents, detached the "chevalier du guet" and his archers to attend the meetings and to prevent the disturbance of the worshippers on their way to and from the places assigned for the Protestant services in the suburbs.

The "tumult of Saint Médard."

At length, on Saturday, the twenty-seventh of December, a serious commotion took place. One of the two spots where Catharine, at the chancellor's suggestion, had permitted the Huguenots of the capital to meet for worship, was a spacious building on the southern side of the Seine, outside the walls and not far from the gate of St. Marceau. It bore the enigmatical designation of "Le Patriarche," derived—so antiquarians alleged—from the circumstance that it had been built long before by a patriarch of Alexandria expelled from his see by the Moslems.[1246] Here a congregation of several thousand persons[1247] had assembled in the afternoon. The introductory services over, the pastor, Jean Malot, had been preaching for a quarter of an hour, when his sermon was noisily interrupted. Separated from the "Patriarche" by a narrow lane stood the parish church of Saint Médard. Under the pretext of summoning the people to vespers, the priests had ordered all the bells in the tower to be rung violently, and hoped by the din to put an end to the heretical worship in the vicinity. Finding it impossible to make himself heard, the minister endeavored to restrain his excited audience, and after the singing of a psalm resumed his discourse. It was all in vain: St. Médard's bells pealed out the tocsin, and the sound of the discharge of fire-arms, and the crash of stones hurled from the belfry, increased the confusion. Meanwhile two Protestants had quietly gone over to the side door of the church, to request an abatement of the interruption. Their civil request was answered with violence. One of the men barely escaped with his life; the other, a deacon of the church, was killed on the spot. Five or six royal archers, commanded by the provost, Rouge-Oreille, next summoned the party within the church to desist, but met with no better success. At length the people, now congregated around the entrance, and subjected to a storm of missiles from the windows and the tower, forced open the doors and entered the church. Here they discovered the corpse of their murdered brother. The priests and sacristans, though armed with swords and clubs, were soon driven to take refuge in the belfry. In the struggle the ecclesiastics themselves became iconoclasts, and, when their supply of less sacred implements ran low, broke in pieces the images of saints, and rained the fragments upon the Huguenot crowd. Finally a threat to set fire to the belfry put an end at once to the ringing of the tocsin and to the holy shower. Meantime the tumultous peals of St. Médard's bells had drawn to the spot the "chevalier du guet," one Gabaston, who, on learning the circumstances, promptly lent aid in quelling the disturbance, and arrested a number of the leaders in the riotous proceedings. Yielding to an injudicious impulse, the motley crowd of Huguenots and of persons who had been attracted to the scene by the noise resolved to accompany the prisoners to the "Petit Châtelet," and the march assumed the appearance of a triumphal procession. Between Gabaston's troop of over two hundred mounted and foot archers, and the detachment of Rouge-Oreille, walked a band of unarmed Protestants, followed by the Roman Catholic prisoners, many of them in their ecelesiastical dresses, and tied together two by two. It was deemed little short of a miracle that the procession, even with its escort of soldiery, should be suffered to enter the city and pass through its densely crowded streets on a public holiday, without being attacked by the intensely Roman Catholic populace.[1248]

Such was the famous "tumult of Saint Médard"—the result of a plan adopted expressly to stir up the inveterate hostility of the Parisians against the adherents of the Reformation, and to serve as the pretext for demanding the prohibition of the Protestant "assemblies."[1249] The popular explosion that had been expected instantly to follow the application of the match was deferred until the morrow, when a rabble such as the capital alone could pour forth gutted the interior of the "Patriarche" and would have set it on fire, had it not been repulsed by a small body of Huguenot gentlemen.[1250] The plot had proved abortive; but it was the innocent victims and the friends of good order, not the conspirators, who paid the penalty of the broken law. While the priest of Saint Médard and his accomplices were promptly discharged, without even a reprimand, Gabaston and one "Nez-d'Argent," royal officers who had interfered to restore order, were executed by command of parliament.[1251]

Assembly of notables at St. Germain.

About a week after the occurrence of the seditious disturbance just narrated, the assembly of notables was convened at St. Germain (January, 1562). To this body it was proposed to refer the religious condition of the realm, with the view of reaching some more definite and satisfactory settlement than the "Edict of July," whose provisions had become a dead letter before the ink with which they were written was dry.

Chancellor L'Hospital's opening address.

Diversity of sentiment.

The nuncio's alarm and activity.

The chancellor, who, according to custom, set forth at considerable length the circumstances constraining the king, by his mother's advice, to summon the representatives of his trusty parliaments, with the highest lords of the kingdom, to give him their counsel, dwelt upon the signal failure of all the measures of repression hitherto adopted, and upon the necessity of finding other remedies for the public ills. He disclaimed any intention on the king's part to introduce a discussion respecting the two religions in order to settle their respective merits. It was not to establish the faith, but to regulate the state, that they were assembled. Those who were in no sense Christians might yet be citizens; and, in leaving the Church, a man did not cease to be a good subject of the king. "We can live in peace," he added, "with those who do not observe the same ceremonies and usages, and we can apply to ourselves the current saying: A wife's faults ought either to be cured or to be endured."[1252] When the opinions of the members of the assembly were successively given, the apprehensions entertained by the Romish party, from the very initiation of the plan of the conference, were seen to be well grounded.[1253] The orthodoxy of the sentiments of the majority was by no means above suspicion. The nuncio, Santa Croce, chronicles with alarm the preponderance of those who openly advocated the adoption of lenient measures. It was evident that the Edict of July, with its bloody policy, could command the votes of only a small minority. The pontifical ambassador trembled lest the Protestants should, after all, obtain the largest concessions. He was, consequently, as despondent as ever his predecessor had been.[1254] But, more prudent than the Bishop of Viterbo, he took pains to conceal his fears from the eyes of the courtiers, lest he should furnish the Huguenots with fresh means of influencing the wavering government. Accordingly, instead of giving up everything as lost, he spared neither time nor money, besieging the doors of the grandees who were believed to be true friends of the Holy See, and entreating them to dismiss all intention of leaving the court, and thus abandoning the field to their enemies.[1255] He even sought an interview with Catharine de' Medici, and, in company with the Spanish ambassador, offered her the united forces of the Pope and of Philip to repress any disturbances that might arise from the adoption of a course unpalatable to the Huguenots; and he returned from the audience persuaded that "these preachers would obtain no churches, and would gain nothing from the conference."[1256]

In this conclusion, however, the nuncio was but partially correct. It is true that the small faction favoring an adherence to the old persecuting policy succeeded, by uniting with the advocates of a limited toleration, in defeating the project of the more liberal party;[1257] but, as will be seen, it was by no means true that Protestantism gained nothing by the results of the deliberations.

The Edict of January.

These results were embodied in the famous law which, from the circumstance that it was signed on the seventeenth of January. 1562, is known in history as the "Edict of January." It began by repealing the provisional edict of the preceding July, because, in consequence of its sweeping prohibition of all public and private assemblies, it had failed of accomplishing the objects intended, as was clear from the more aggravated seditions ensuing. It ordained that "those of the new religion" should give up all the churches they had seized, and prohibited them from building others, whether inside or outside of the cities. But the cardinal prescription was that, while all assemblages for the purpose of listening to preaching, either by day or by night, were forbidden within the walled cities, the penalties should be suspended "provisionally and until the determination of a general council" in the case of unarmed gatherings for religious worship held by day outside these limits. The Protestants, both on their way to their services and on their return, were to be exempt from molestation on the part of the royal magistrates, who were enjoined to punish all seditious persons, whatever might be their religion. The ministers were commanded to inquire carefully into the life and morals of those whom they admitted to their communion, to permit royal officers to be present at all their religious exercises, and to take a solemn oath before the local magistrates to observe this ordinance, promising, at the same time, to teach no doctrines at variance with the true word of God as contained in the Nicene Creed and in the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. Inflammatory and insulting harangues were forbidden alike to the Romish and the Protestant preachers. All seditious combinations, the enrolment of troops, and the levy of money, were prohibited; nor could even an ecclesiastical synod or consistory be held without the previous consent of the royal officers and in their presence.[1258]

The Huguenots no longer outlaws.

Such were the most important features of a law the promulgation of which marks the termination of the first great period in the history of the Huguenots of France—the period of persecution inflicted mainly according to cruel legal ordinances and under the forms of judicial procedure. From the moment of the publication of this charter—imperfect and inadequate as it manifestly was—the Huguenots ceased to be outlaws, and became, in the eye of the law, at least, a class entitled within certain limits to the protection of the ministers of justice. Unhappily for France, the solemn recognition of Protestant rights was scarcely conceded by representatives of the entire nation before an attempt was made by a desperate faction to annul and overturn it by intrigue and violence. The next act in this remarkable drama is, therefore, the inauguration of the period of Civil War, or of oppression exercised in defiance of acknowledged rights and of the accepted principles of equity—a lamentable period, in which every bloody contest originated in the determination of the one party to circumscribe or destroy, and of the other to maintain in its integrity the fundamental basis of toleration laid down in the Edict of January.

End of Volume I.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Meantime I am glad that we may expect before very long, from the pen of my brother, Charles W. Baird, the history of the Huguenot emigration to the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—a work based upon extensive research, that will afford much interesting information respecting a movement hitherto little understood, and fill an important gap in our historical literature.

[2] Of the different modes of spelling this name, I choose the mode which, according to the numerous fac-similes given by Dr. Forbes, the worthy knight seems himself to have followed with commendable uniformity.

[3] Mignet, Essai sur la formation territoriale et politique de la France depuis la fin du onzième siècle jusqu'à la fin du quiinzième. Notices et Mémoires Historiques, ii. 154.

[4] Mignet, 157, 158.

[5] A manuscript chronicle of the time of Charles the Sixth, quoted by Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, iv. 144, states the interesting fact that the inhabitants of Périgord and the adjoining districts, thus surrendered to Henry the Third of England, for centuries bore so hearty a grudge against the French king, of whom the rest of France was justly proud, and whose name the church had enrolled in the calendar, that they never would consent to regard him as a saint or to celebrate his feast day!

[6] "Le quali tutte provincie sono così bene poste," etc. Relazione di Francia dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli, in Relations des Ambassadeurs Vénitiens (Tommaseo, Paris), i. 220.

[7] "Dico che il regno di Francia per universal consenso del mondo fu riputato il primo regno di cristianità," etc. Commentario del regno di Francia del clarissimo sig. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 470.

[8] "Dopo il papa che è universal capo della religione, e la signoria di Venezia, che, come è nata, s'è conservata sempre cristiana." Suriano, ubi supra, i. 472.

[9] This was in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Dec. 15, 1559, MSS. British Museum. I use the summary in the Calendar of State Papers (Stevenson), p. 197, note.

[10] Marino Cavalli stated, in 1546, that this systematic policy of continually incorporating and never alienating had been pursued for eighty years. So successful had it proved, that everything had been absorbed by confiscation, succession, or purchase. There was, perhaps, no longer a single prince in the kingdom with an income of 20,000 crowns; while even their scanty resources and straitened estates the princes possessed simply as ordinary proprietors, from whose actions an appeal was open to the king. Relazioni Venete (Albèri, Firenze), serie 1, i. 234, 235.

[11] Yet the old prejudice against city life had not fully died out. So late as in 1527, Chassanée wrote: "Galliæ omnis una est nobilium norma. Nam rura et prædia sua (dicam potius castra) incolentes urbes fugiunt, in quibus habitare nobilem turpe ducitur. Qui in illis degunt, ignobiles habentur a nobilibus." Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 200.

[12] Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 488.

[13] Mignet, ubi supra, ii. 160, etc.

[14] Rel. dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli (1546), ubi supra, i. 229.

[15] It would seem that the Venetian ambassadors were never free from apprehension lest their admiration of what they had seen abroad might be construed as disparagement of their own island city. Hence, Marino Giustiniano (A. D. 1535), after making the statement which we have given in the text, is careful to add: "Pur non arriva di richezza ad una gran gionta quanto Venezia; nè anco ha maggior popolo, per mio giudizio, di che loro si gloriano." Rel. Venete (Albèri, Firenze), serie 1, i. 148.

[16] The lowest estimate, which is that of Guicciardini (Belgiæ Descriptio, apud Prescott, Philip II., i. 367), is probably nearest the mark; the highest, 800,000, is that of Davila, Storia delle Guerre Civili, 1. iii. (Eng. trans., p. 79). Marino Cavalli, in 1546, says 500,000; Michel Suriano, in 1561, between 400,000 and 500,000. M. Dulaure is even more parsimonious than Guicciardini, for he will allow Paris, in the sixteenth century, not more than 200,000 to 210,000 souls! Histoire de Paris, iv. 384. Some of the exaggerated estimates may be errors of transcription. At least Ranke asserts that this is the case with the 500,000 of Fran. Giustiniani in 1537, where the original manuscript gives only 300,000. Französische Geschichte, v. (Abschn. 1), 76.

[17] See, for example, the MS. receipt, from which it appears that, in 1516, Sieur Imbert de Baternay pledged his entire service of plate to help defray the expenses of the war. Capefigue, François Premier et la Renaissance, i. 141.

[18] Marino Giustiniano (1535), Rel. Venete (Albèri), i, 185, François de Rabutin, Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Panthéon), 697.

[19] Marino Giustiniano, ubi supra.

[20] M. A. Boullée (in his Histoire complète des États-Généraux, i. 181, etc.) and other writers give the character of States General to the gathering of princes, clergy, etc., at Tours, in May, 1506. This was the assembly from which Louis XII. obtained the welcome advice to break an engagement to give his daughter Claude, heiress of Brittany, in marriage to Charles, the future emperor of Germany, in order that he might be free to bestow her hand on Francis of Angoulême. M. Boullée is also inclined to call the assembly after the battle of St. Quentin, January 5, 1558, a meeting of the States General. But Michel Suriano is correct in stating (Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. 512-514) that between Louis XI.'s time and 1560 the only States General were those of 1483. Chancellor L'Hospital's words cited below are conclusive.

[21] Some of Louis XI.'s successors imbibed his aversion for these popular assemblies, and would, like Louis, have treated any one as a rebel who dared to talk of calling them. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén. (Tommaseo), i. 512-514.

[22] Chancellor L'Hospital's remarkable words were: "Or, messieurs, parceque nous reprenons l'ancienne coustume de tenir les estats jà délaissés par le temps de quatre-vingts ans ou environ, où n'y a mémoire d'homme qui y puisse atteindre, je diray en peu de paroles que c'est que tenir les estats, pour quelle cause Fon assembloit les estats, la façon et manière, et qui y présidoit, quel bien en vient au roy, quel au peuple, et mesmes s'il est utile au roy de tenir les estats, ou non." The address in full in La Place, Commentaires de l'Estat de la République, etc. (Ed. Panthéon), 80.

[23] Michel Suriano, ubi supra.

[24] "Tellement que sous ces beaux et doux appasts, l'on n'ouvre jamais telles assemblees que le peuple n'y accoure, ne les embrasse, et ne s'en esiouysse infiniement, ne considerant pas qu'il n'y a rien qu'il deust tant craindre, comme estant le general refrain d'iceux, de tirer argent de luy.... Au contraire jamais on ne feit assemblee generale des trois Estats en cette France, sans accroistre les finances de nos Roys à la diminution de celles du peuple." Pasquier, Recherches de la France, l. ii. c. 7, p. 82.

[25] "Il rè di Francia è rè d'asini, perchè il suo popolo supoorta ogni sorte di peso, senza rechiamo mai." Michel Suriano, Commentarii (Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo), i. 486.

[26] Guerres de Belgique (Éd. Panthéon), 585.

[27] "Egli può riputar poi tutti li danari della Francia esser suoi; perche nelli suoi bisogni, sempre che li dimanda, gli sono portati molto volontariamente per la incomparabil benevolenza di essi popoli." Relaz. Ven. (Albèri), ii. 172.

[28] Cayet, Hist. de la guerre sous le règne de Henry IV., i. 248. We shall see that Francis carried out the same ideas of absolute authority in his dealings both with reputed heresy and with the Gallican Church itself. He seems even to have believed himself commissioned to do all the thinking in matters of religion for his more intellectual sister; for, if Brantôme may be credited, when Constable Montmorency, on one occasion, had the temerity to suggest to him that all his efforts to extirpate error in France would be futile until he began with Margaret of Angoulême, Francis silenced him with the remark: "No more on that subject! She loves me too much; she will never believe anything but what I desire." Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre.

[29] "Stanno a quelli soggetti più che cani." Relaz. Ven., ii. 174.

[30] Ibid., ubi supra.

[31] "Mercatores aspernantur," says Chassanée in 1527, "ut vile atque abjectum omnium genus." Catal. Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 200.

[32] Mignet, ubi supra, ii. 173.

[33] See the sketch by Daniel, Histoire de France, reprinted in Leber, Collection de pièces relatives à l'histoire de France, vi, 266, etc.; also Mignet, ubi supra, ii. 177, etc.

[34] Mignet, ubi supra, ii. 212; Floquet, Histoire du parlement de Normandie, tom. i.; Daniel, ubi supra; Vicomte de Bastard-D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 189.

[35] The formula is worthy of attention: "Quand on vous apportera à sceller quelque lettre, signée par le commandement du Roi, si elle n'est de justice et raison, ne la scellerez point, encore que ledit Seigneur le commandast par une ou deux fois; mais viendrez devers iceluy Seigneur, et lui remonstrerez tous les points par lesquels ladite lettre n'est pas raisonnable, et après que aura entendu lesdita points, s'il vous commande la sceller, la scellerez, car lors le péché en sera sur ledit Seigneur et non sur vous." In full in M. de Saint-Allais, De l'ancienne France (Paris, 1834), ii. 91; see also Capefigue, François Premier et la Renaissance, i. 106.

[36] Certainly not than with the Parliament of Aix. See its shortcomings in the papers of Prof. Joly, of the Faculté des Lettres of Caen, entitled "Les juges des Vaudois: Mercuriales du parlement de Provence au XVI^e siècle, d'après des documents inédits." Bulletin de l'hist. du Prot. fr., xxiv. (1875), 464-471, 518-523, 555-564.

[37] "Qu'il n'y a pas un seigneur en ce ressort, qui n'aye son chancelier en ceste Cour." Boscheron des Portes, Histoire du parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 191-194, from Registers of Parliament.

[38] "La génuflexion ne le ferait pas moins roi qu'il était." Ibid., i. 185.

[39] See Pasquier's conclusive argument in his chapter: "Que l'opinion est erronée par laquelle on attribue l'institution de l'Université de Paris à l'Empereur Charlemagne." Recherches de la France, 800. So universally accepted, however, in Pasquier's time, was the story of Charlemagne's agency in the matter, that "de croire le contraire c'est estre hérétique en l'histoire," p. 798.

[40] The chancellor "de Notre Dame," the chancellor proper, alone had the power to create doctors in theology, law, and medicine; but candidates for the degree of master of arts might apply either to him or to the rival chancellor of Sainte Geneviève: "Quant aux Maistres és Arts, à l'un ou l'autre Chancelier, selon le choix qui en est fait par celuy qui veut prendre sa licence." Pasquier, Recherches, 840.

[41] "Le premier juge et censeur de la doctrine et mœurs des escoliers, que nous appelons Chancelier de l'Université." Pasquier, ubi supra, 265.

[42] Pasquier has a fund of quaint information respecting the university, the chancellor, the rector, etc. Of the contrast between rector and chancellor he remarks: "Quant au Chancelier de l'Université il pare seulement de ce coup contre toutes ces grandeurs (sc. du Recteur); que le Recteur fait des escoliers pour estudier (tout ainsi que le capitaine des soldats, quand il les enrolle pour combattre) mais le Chancelier fait des capitaines quand il baille le bonnet de Theologie, Decret, Medecine, et Arts, pour enseigner et monter en chaire." Ubi supra, 843.

[43] Sleidanus, De statu rel., etc., ad annum 1521.

[44] "Vinculis, censuris, imo ignibus et flammis coercendam, potius quam ratione convincendam." Determination of the Fac. of Theology against Luther, April 15. 1521, Gerdes, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 10, etc., Documents.

[45] From the Cité, or island on which the city was originally built, and the Ville, or Paris north of the Seine. Pasquier, Recherches, 797; J. Sinceri, Itinerarium Galliæ (1627), 270.

[46] Juvenal des Ursins, apud Pasquier, 267.

[47] Relazioni Venete (Albèri), i. 149.

[48] Ibid., i. 226.

[49] "Donc, le gouvernement de l'Église n'est pas un empire despotique." Abbé Claude Fleury, Discours sur les Libertés de l'Église gallicane, 1724 (reprinted in Leber, Coll. de pièces relatives à l'hist. de France, iii. 252).

[50] "On a contesté l'authenticité de cette pièce, mais elle est aujourd'hui généralement reconnu." Isambert, Recueil gén. des anciennes lois françaises, i. 339.

[51] Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, pt. ii.; Isambert, ubi supra; Ordonnances des Roys de France de la troisième race, i. 97-98. Section 5 sufficiently expresses the feelings of the king in reference to the insatiable covetousness of the Roman court: "Item, exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum, per curiam Romanam ecclesiæ regni nostri impositas vel imposita, quibus regnum nostrum miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive etiam imponendas, aut imponenda levari, aut colligi nullatenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili, pia et urgentissima causa, inevitabili necessitate, et de spontaneo et expresso consensu nostro et ipsius ecclesiæ regni nostri." See also Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vii. 104.

[52] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xiii. 317, etc.

[53] The Pragmatic Sanction is long and intricate, consisting in great part of references to those portions of the canons of the Council of Basle which it confirms. The entire document may be seen in the Ordonnances des Roys de Fr. de la troisième race, xiii. 267-291, and in the Recueil gén. des anc. lois franç., ix. 3-47. Isambert thus defines the term pragmatic: "On appelle pragmatique toute constitution donnée en connaissance de cause du consentiment unanime de tous les grands, et consacrée par la volonté du prince. Le mot pragma signifie prononcée, sentence, édit; il était en usage avant Saint Louis."

[54] Abbé Claude Fleury, Libertés de l'Église Gallicane, in Leber, iii. 321.

[55] "Commemoravit (i. e., the papal legate) ea quæ per ipsum tibi nostro nomine pollicenda, vovenda et promittenda, nos, antequam regnum suscepisemus, religionis instinctus quidam deduxerat." Letter of Louis XI. to the Pope, Tours, Nov. 27, 1461.

[56] Louis XI.'s letter to the Pope, annulling the Pragmatic Sanction, is in the Ordonnances des roys de Fr. de la troisième race, xv., 193-194. Its tone could not have been more submissive had it been penned for him by the Pope himself. The Pragmatic Sanction is referred to contemptuously as "constitutio quædam in regno nostro quam Pragmaticam vocant." Louis professes to be moved by the consideration that obedience is better than all sacrifice, and that the Pragmatic Sanction is hateful to the Papal See, "utpote quæ in seditione et schismatis tempore ... nata est; et quæ, dum tibi, a quo sacræ leges oriuntur et manant, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, omne jus et omnem legem dissolvit." It was "as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness: "Sicut mandasti ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc. He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos in verbo regio pollicemur tuæ Beatitudini atque promittimus exsequi facere tua mandata, omni appellationis aut oppositionis obstaculo prorsus excluso," etc. Louis was never more to be distrusted than when he bound himself by the most stringent promises.

[57] See the Remonstrances of Parliament, Ordonnances, etc., xv. 195-207.

[58] The calculations on which these figures are based can be seen in sections 73-76 of the Remonstrances above referred to. Ibid., xv. 195-207.

[59] "Les autres ambitieux de benefices, si espuisoient les bourses de leurs parens et amis, tellement qu'ils demeuroient en grand' mendicité et misere, ou'aucunesfois estoient cause de l'abreviation de leurs jours; et tout le fruit qu'ils emportoient, c'estoit pour or du plomb." Ibid., section 64.

[60] Ibid., ubi supra.

[61] Historians have represented Cardinal Balue as enclosed in the very cage he had used for the victims of his own cruelty. This appears to be incorrect. There is an entry in the accounts of Louis XI., under date of February 11, 1469, of the payment of sixty livres Tournois to Squire Guion de Broc, to be used by him "in having constructed, at the castle Douzain, an iron cage, which the said lord (i. e., Louis) has ordered to be made for the security and guard of the person of the Cardinal of Angers (Balue)." Vatout, Château d'Amboise, 64, 65, note.

[62] Fleury, ubi supra, 340.

[63] See Capefigue's animated description of the scene in the cathedral of Bologna, ubi supra, i. 229.

[64] The text of the concordat is given in the Recueil gén. des anc. lois, etc., xii. 75-97.

[65] Leue, publiée et registrée par l'ordonnance et du commandement du Roy, nostre sire, réiterée par plusieurs fois en presence du seigneur de la Trimouille, etc. Recueil des anc. lois, xii. 97.

[66] Appellatio Univ. Parisiensis pro sacrarum Electionum et juris communis defensione, adversus Concordata Bononiensia, apud Gerdes. Hist. Ev. Renov. i. 61-69 (Documents). "Idcirco," it runs, "a domino nostro Papa non recte consulto, et ... pragmaticæ sanctionis statutorum abrogatione, novorum statutorum editione, ... ad futurum concilium legitime ac in tuto loco, et ad quem libere et cum securitate ... adire poterimus ... provocavimus et appellavimus, prout in his scriptis provocamus et appellamus."

[67] I have made considerable use of the very clear dissertation on the Pragmatic Sanction and the concordat, republished in Leber, Collection de pièces relatives à l'hist. de France, tome 3. The commotion in Paris at the introduction of the concordat is described in a lively manner by the unknown author of the "Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François I^er," 39, 70, etc.

[68] Almanach royal pour l'an 1724 (Paris), 34.

[69] Leo X. also obtained from Francis, as an equivalent for the concessions embodied in the concordat, the sum of 100,000 livres, as the dower of Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, a princess of royal blood, married in 1518 to Lorenzo de' Medici, Count of Urbino, the Pope's nephew. The money was to be levied upon the next tithe taken from the revenues of the French clergy, which Leo thus authorized. Catharine de' Medici sprang from this marriage. See the receipt of Lorenzo for the instalment of a quarter of the dower, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, ix. (1860), 122.

[70] Mignet, Établissement de la Réforme à Genève, Mémoires, ii. 243. Étienne Pasquier draws a dark picture of the barbarism reigning at Paris at the accession of Francis. More highly honored than any other university of Europe, that of Paris had fallen so low that the Hebrew tongue was known only by name, and as for Greek, the attention given to it was more apparent than real. "Car mesmes lors qu'il estoit question de l'expliquer, ceste parole couroit en la bouche de plusieurs ignorans, Græcum est, non legitur." The very Latin, which was the language in ordinary use, was rude and clumsy. Recherches de la France, 831.

[71] La Harpe, Cours de litérature, vi. 405.

[72] Gaillard, Histoire de François premier (Paris ed., 1769), vii. 282-300. Félibien, among the many interesting documents he has preserved, reproduces one of the first programmes of the professors of the Collége Royal, preserved from destruction, doubtless, simply from the circumstance that it formed the ground of a citation of the professors by the syndic of the university (Beda), January, 1534, wherein he alleges that "some simple grammarians or rhetoricians, who had not studied with the faculty, had undertaken to read in public and to interpret the Holy Scriptures, as appears from certain bills posted in the streets and squares of Paris." In the programme, Agathius Guidacerius, Francis Vatable, P. Arnesius (Danesius), and Paul Paradisus figure as lecturing—the first two upon the Psalms, the third on Aristotle, and the last on Hebrew grammar and the book of Proverbs. Michel Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725), iv. 682.

[73] The law of 1523 thus sets forth some of their exploits: "Outre mesure multiplient leurs pilleries, cruautez et meschancetez, jusques à vouloir assaillir les villes closes: les aucunes desquelles ils out prinses d'assaut, saccagées, robées et pillées, forcé filles et femmes, tué les habitans inhumainement, et cruellement traitté les aucuns en leur crevant les yeux, et coupant les membres les uns après les autres, sans en avoir pitié, faisant ce que cruelles bestes ne feroient," etc. Isambert, Recueil des lois anc., xii. 216. See also Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris (1516), 36; and Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, Nouvelle Coll., lettre 7.

[74] Journal d'un bourgeois (1516), 37.

[75] Ibid, (anno 1527), 328.

[76] Ibid., 36. It would appear that even this penalty did not deter them from the commission of their infamous crimes, for a fresh edict, in 1523 (Isambert, xii., 216), prescribes that for exemplary punishment "lesdicts blasphemateurs exécrables avant que souffrir mort, ayent la gorge ouverte avec un fer chaud et la langue tirée ou coupée par les dessouz; et ce faict penduz et attachez au gibet ou potence, et estranglez, selon leurs desmerites!"

[77] Journal d'un bourgeois, 327. The Marché-aux-pourceaux, or swine market, was a little west of the present Palais Royal, just outside of the walls of Paris, as they existed in the time of Francis I. See the atlas accompanying Dulaure, Histoire de Paris. In December, 1581, the Parliament of Rouen sentenced one Salcède to this horrible death. Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 428.

[78] Journal d'un bourgeois, 326.

[79] Ibid., 251.

[80] Ibid., 434. A somewhat similar instance is mentioned by the continuator of the Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet (anno 1503), l. iii. c. 220.

[81] See the vigorous treatise it called forth from the pen of the great Reformer of Geneva in 1549, under the title of "Advertissement contre l'Astrologie qu'on appelle judiciaire, et autres curiositez qui règnent aujourd'huy dans le monde." Paul L. Jacob, Œuvres françoises de Calvin, 107, etc.

[82] Despatch of La Mothe Fénélon, June 3, 1573, Corr. dipl., v. 345, 346.

[83] L'Heptaméron dea Nouvelles de très haute et très illustre princesse Marguerite d'Angoulême, Reine de Navarre. Publié sur les MSS. par la Soc. des Bibliophiles français. Première Journée, Première Nouvelle.

[84] The practice of magic with small waxen images into which pins were thrust, impious words being uttered at the same time, was at least as old in France as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1330 Robert of Artois employed it to compass the death of Philip of Valois and his queen; just as two centuries and a half later the adherents of the League resorted to the same device to destroy Henry III. and Henry of Navarre. See note L to the Heptameron (edit. cit.), i. 170. Jean de Marcouville (Recueil mémor. Paris, 1564, Cimber et Danjou, iii. 415) alludes to similar sorcery just after the death of Philip the Fair, in 1314. It was therefore no "Italian sorcery" introduced into France by Catharine de' Medici, as M. De Félice seems to suppose (Hist. des prot. de France, liv. ii. c. 17).

[85] "Advertissement très-utile du grand profit qui reviendroit à la Chrétienté, s'il se faisoit inventaire de tous les corps saints et réliques," etc., 1543 (Œuvres françoises de Calvin). A racy treatise, which well exhibits the service done by the author to the French language.

[86] Ibid., 171.

[87] Ibid., 169.

[88] Ibid., 139.

[89] Ibid., 155.

[90] Ibid., 139.

[91] Ibid., 140.

[92] Ibid., 179, 180.

[93] Ibid., 172.

[94] Ibid., 156.

[95] "Et lors faisoit beau voir mon fils porter honneur et reverence au saint sacrement, que chacun en le regardant se prenoit à pleurer de pitié et de joye." Journal de Louise de Savoie, Collection de mémoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.

[96] Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vii. 45, etc.; Mézeray, Abrégé chron. de l'hist. de France (Amst., 1682), iv. 644.

[97] Gaillard, ubi supra.

[98] Cénac Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrénées (Paris, 1854), iv. 342, referring primarily to southern France.

[99] Since the end of the thirteenth century the bishop had been accustomed to delegate the contentious jurisdiction of his diocese to an ecclesiastical judge, taking the name of vicar, or more commonly official ("vicarius generalis officialis"). The court itself became known as the officialité. Trials for heresy, breach of promise of marriage, etc., came before it. See the Dictionnaire de la conversation (1857), s. v. Official.

[100] Michel Surriano (1561), Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. 502. The other half went to princes, barons, and other possessors of lands, etc.

[101] How they behaved there, the abbé of Mériot elsewhere tells us: "Et si le plus souvent à telles noyseay estoient les premiers les prebstres, l'espée au poing, car ilz estoient des premiers aux danses, jeux de quilles, d'escrime, et ès tavernes où ilz ribloient et par les rues toute nuict aultant que les plus meschans du pays." Mém de Claude Haton, 18.

[102] Mémoires de Claude Haton, i. 89, 90.

[103] Giovanni Soranzo returned from France in 1558, or a year before the close of the reign of Henry II.

[104] Relazioni Venete, Albèri, ii. 409. Brantôme is a familiar instance of a favorite thus rewarded from the estates of the church. His amusing vindication of the anomaly is worthy of a perusal. See Digression contre les Eslections des Benefices, Œuvres, tom. vii. On one occasion an enemy of the loquacious courtier caused the assassination of his titular abbot, apparently in the hope of depriving Brantôme of his chief source of revenue! Ibid., vii. 294.

[105] "Solo col ponderar loro la vita che tenevano." Relazione di G. Correro, 1569, Tommaseo, ii. 150.

[106] "Je n'ay point ouy dire, ny leu qu'auparavant ils fussent plus gens-de-bien, et mieux vivants; car en leurs Eveschez et Abbayes, ils estoient autant desbauchez que Gens-d'armes; car comme j'ay dit cydevant, qu'à la cour s'ils faisoient l'amour, c'estoit discrètement et sans scandale," etc. Brantôme, ubi supra, vii. 312.

[107] "Au moins plus sages hypocrites, qui cachent mieux leurs vices noirs." Brantôme, ubi supra, vii. 287-289.

[108] Brantôme, ubi supra, vii. 280.

[109] Brantôme, vii. 286.

[110] Réponse à quelque apologie, etc. Par Antoine de Mouchy, surnommé Démochares, docteur en théologie, 1558. Feuillet 2. Apud Henri Lutteroth, La réformation en France pendant sa première période (Paris, 1859), 137.

[111] "Je suis esbahi de ce que ces jeunes gens nous alleguent le Nouveau Testament. J'avoys plus de cinquante ans que je ne scavoys que c'estoit du Nouveau Testament." Robert Étienne, apud Baum, Origines Evangelii in Gallia restaurati (Strasbourg, 1838), 35.

[112] "Un beau miracle," says the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 38.

[113] Histoire ecclésiastique des Églises Réformées au royaume de France (commonly ascribed to Theodore de Bèze, or Beza) Lille edit., i. 11; Gaillard, vi. 460. A MS. narrative of the farce, dictated by Calvin and taken down by his secretary, Charles de Jonvillers, has been discovered in the Geneva Library. It is printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., iii. (1854), 33, etc. Calvin, who had himself been a student in the University of Orleans, and was fully acquainted with the circumstances, drew up this piquant monograph for J. Sleidan to use in his famous history of the times, where an account may accordingly be read.

[114] See the order of Spifame, of Oct. 5, 1527, for payment to the master mechanic on several annual recurrences of the scene, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., xxv. (1876), 236, with M. Bordier's erratum.

[115] Farel, Du vray Usage de la Croix, 129, 131.

[116] "Credo in Jesum inter animalia ex virgine nasciturum." Chassanée, Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 295. The medals were said to have been unearthed at Autun, the residence of Chassanée, who informs us "multum curavi invenire, sed non potui." But, in addition to the coins, Chassanée gravely tells us there was also a church built by the Franks at Chartres before the advent of Christ, in honor of the most blessed Virgin parituræ; "from which it is demonstrated that, if other Gentiles prophesied in word concerning Christ, the Franks believed on him in deed, just as also the Greeks, who erected a temple to the unknown God." Ibid., ubi supra.

[117] From the simple costume worn arose the designation of "les processions blanches."

[118] Le protestantisme en Champagne: Récits extraits d'un manuscrit de N. Pithou, seigneur de Chamgobert concernant l'histoire de la fondation, etc., de l'église réf. de Troyes dès 1539 à 1595, par Ch. L. B. Recordon (Paris, 1863), 31-33.

[119] The original of this remarkable record, the more significant from the subsequent position of Louise as a determined enemy of the Protestants, may be seen in Journal de Louise de Savoie, Coll. de mémoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.

[120] See Mézeray's bitter words respecting Cardinal Duprat's last hours and character, Abrégé chronologique, iv. 584.

[121] "Poi me disse che per opera del Reverendissimo di Granmont non si faria cosa buona in questa cosa, perche et lui et il Gran Cancellario di Francia erano huomini più disposti a fare quattro guerre die una pace." Cardinal Campeggio to Cardinal Salviati, apud H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana hist. ecclés. sæculi XVI. illustrantia, ex tab. sanctæ sedis Apostolicæ secretis, Frib. Brisg., 1861, 67.

[122] The Manichæism of the Albigenses is maintained by Mosheim, Gieseler, Schmidt, etc. A good summary of the evidence in favor of this view is given in an article in the London Quarterly Review for April, 1855. The defence of the Albigenses from this serious charge is ably conducted by George Stanley Faber in his "Inquiry into the History and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses" (London, 1838). One of the more recent apologists is F. de Portal, in his "Les descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots" (Paris, 1860).

[123] At Arras, for instance, in 1460, a number of men and women were burned alive as Vaudois, after having been entrapped into an admission of their guilt by a treacherous advocate. Too late they exposed the deceit practised upon them, and protested their innocence. The alleged crimes were: flying to their place of assembly by witchcraft, adoring the devil, trampling upon the cross, blasphemy, riotous feasting, and vile offences against morality—staple charges recurring again and again, ad nauseam, whenever persecuted men and women have been compelled to meet secretly for God's worship. See L. Rossier, Histoire des protestants de Picardie (Paris, 1861), 1-4; and more at length, Chronicon Cornelii Zantfliet, which styles the sufferers heretics a hundred times worse than Waldenses. Martene et Durand, Vet. Scriptorum ampliss. collectio (Paris, 1729), vii. 501.

[124] If, as Adolphe Müntz concludes, after a critical examination of style, etc. (Nicolas de Clémangis; sa vie et ses écrits, Paris, 1846), the famous treatise De ruina Ecclesiæ, or De corrupto Ecclesiæ statu, emanated not from Clemangis at Avignon, but from some member of the University of Paris hostile to the Popes of Avignon, yet the undisputed writings of Clemangis contain denunciations of the corruptions of the church quite as decided as any found in the spurious treatise. In his tract De Præsulibus Simoniacis, for example, he declares that the degradation of the clergy, fostered by the cupidity of the episcopate, had indeed made God's house a den of robbers. It was "rapinæ officina in qua venalia exponuntur sacramenta ... in qua peccata etiam venduntur," etc. Müntz, 53. Certainly it would be hard to portray the life of the priests in darker colors than they appear in the letters of C. to Gerson, the authenticity of which is not challenged. See the extracts in Von Polenz, Calvinismus in Frankreich, i. 115. According to Nicholas de Clemangis, the chaste priest was a rare exception, and an object of ridicule to his companions.

[125] The complicated motives inducing the Council of Constance to acquiesce in the cruel sentence of Huss were skilfully traced as far back as by the learned Mosheim, Institutes of Eccles. Hist. (ed. Murdoch), ii. 429, note.

[126] This rare poem has been reprinted, with the unimportant passages omitted, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., v. (1857) 268, etc.

[127]

"Cessez, cessez me donner ornemens,
Calices, croix, et beaux accoutremens;
Faictes que j'aye ministres vertueux....
Les images d'argent tant sumptueux,
La grant beauté des moustiers si notables
Ne sont pas tant devant Dieu acceptables
Que la doctrine et vie bonne et saincte
Des bona prelatz."

[128] Scævolæ Sammarthani Elog. lib. i., i. 3. "Statura fuit supra modum humili," etc.

[129] Sc. Sammarthani Elog., ubi supra.

[130] Lefèvre's scientific works were numerous, and some of them passed through many editions during the early years of the sixteenth century. See Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre. I have before me his edition of the Arithmetic of Boëtius, with introduction and commentary, of the year 1510, and copies of his Astronomical Treatises of 1510 and 1516, the last of these published at Cologne.

[131] Sc. Sammarth. Elog., ubi supra.

[132] Epistre à tons Seigneurs et Peuples (Edit. J. G. Fick), 172.

[133] The passage in which Farel describes his former superstition is so characteristic, that I quote a few sentences: "Pour vray la papauté n'estoit et n'est tant papale que mon cœur l'a esté.... Car tellement il avoit aveuglé mes yeux et perverti tout en moy, que s'il y avoit personnage qui fut approuvé selon le pape, il m'estoit comme Dieu; si quelqu'un faisoit ou disoit quelque chose, d'ou le pape et son estat en fut en quelque mespris, j'eusse voulu qu'un tel ... fut du tout abbatu, ruiné et destruit.... Ainsy Satan avoit logé le pape, sa papauté, tout ce qui est de luy en mon cœur, de sorte que le pape mesme, comme je croy, n'en avoit point tant en soy ne [ni] les siens aussy, comme il y en avoit en moy.... Et ainsy je persevere, ayant mon panteon en mon cœur, et tant d'advocats, tant de sauveurs, tant de dieux que rien plus ... tellement que je pouvoye bien estre tenu pour un registre papal, pour martyrologe," etc. Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 164, 167, 169.

[134] Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 4, 481.

[135] See the dedication, dated Dec. 15, 1512, Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 2-9.

[136] Letter of Farel to Pellican (1556), Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 481: "Pius senex, Jacobus Faber, quem tu novisti, ante annos plus minus quadraginta, me manu apprehensum, ita alloquebatur: 'Gulielme, oportet orbem mutari, et tu videbis' dicebat." So in the "Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples" (Ed. Fick), 170: "Souventefois me disoit que Dieu renouvelleroit le monde, et que je le verroye." A few years later, at Strasbourg, the reformer reminded his former master of his prediction: "Voicy par la grace de Dieu, le commencement de ce qu'autrefois m'avez dit du renouvellement du monde," and Lefèvre, then in exile, blessed God, and begged Him to perfect what he had then seen begun at Strasbourg. Ibid., 171. These statements are confirmed by a passage in the Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, in which, after deploring the corruption of the church, Lefèvre observes: "Yet the signs of the times announce that a renewal is near, and while God is opening new ways for the preaching of the Gospel, by the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese and Spaniards in all parts of the world, we must hope that He will visit His church and raise it from the degradation into which it is fallen." Herminjard, i. 5.

[137] Scævolæ Sammarthani, Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum, lib. i. (Jenæ, 1696); Bayle, s. v. Fèvre and Farel; Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Lefèvre; C. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Leben und ausgew. Schriften d. Väter d. ref. Kirche; C. Chenevière, Farel, Froment, Viret (Genève, 1835).

[138] Gaillard, Histoire de François premier (Paris, 1769), vi. 397. It was the unpardonable offence of Lefèvre in the eyes of his critic that he, a simple master of arts, had dared to investigate matters that fell to the province of doctors of theology alone. Letter of H. C. Agrippa (1519), in Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 51: "Tantum virum semel atque iterum ... vocarunt hominem stultum, insanum fidei, Sacrarum Literarum indoctum et ignarum, et qui, duntaxat humanarum artium Magister, præsumptuose se ingerat iis quæ spectant ad Theologos." As it clearly appears that Lefèvre was not a doctor of the Sorbonne, Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying: "Seit 1493 lebte er als Doctor der Theologie zu Paris, u. s. w." The error is of long standing.

[139] See Alphonse de Beauchamp's sketches of the lives of the two Briçonnets, in the Biographie universelle.

[140] According to a contemporary letter, this was the sole cause of Lefèvre's departure. "Faber Stapulensis ab urbe longe abest ad XX. lapidem, neque ullam ob causam quam quod convitia in Lutherum audire non potest." Glareanus to Zwingle, Paris, July 4, 1521, Herminjard, i. 71.

[141] Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 168-175.

[142] In October, 1521. Herminjard, i. 76.

[143] "Vous asseurant que le Roy et Madame ont bien delibéré de donner à congnoistre que la vérité de Dieu n'est point hérésie." Margaret of Angoulême to Briçonnet, Nov., 1521, MSS. National Lib., Herminjard, i. 78; Génin, ii. 273.

[144] "Vos piteulx desirs de la reformacion de l'Eglise, où plus que jamais le Roy et Madame sont affectionnés." Same to same, Dec, 1521, Ibid., Herminjard, i. 84; Génin, ii. 274. Compare Louise de Savoie's own entry in her journal, in December, 1522, a year later, to which reference has already been made.

[145] See the valuable remarks of M. Herminjard (i. 289, note) respecting the date of the "manifestation of the Gospel" in France.

[146] Luther to Spalatin, Oct. 19, 1516, Herminjard, i. 26.

[147] Herminjard, i. 41, 205, 206.

[148] Lefèvre was placed in charge of the Léproserie, Aug. 11, 1521, and was appointed vicar-general au spirituel, May 1, 1523. Herminjard, i. 71 and 157.

[149] Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 277, under date of 1526.

[150] "Moy et autres comme moy, lèverons une cruciade de gens, et ferons chasser le Roy de son Royaume par ses subjectz propres, s'il permet que l'Évangile soit presché." Farel au Duc de Lorraine, Herminjard, i. 483.

[151] Pierre de Sébeville au Chevalier Coct, Grenoble, Dec. 28, 1524: "Je te notifie que l'évesque de Meaulx en Brie, près Paris, cum Jacobo Fabro Stapulensi, depuis trois moys en visitant l'evesché, ont bruslé actu tous les imaiges, réservé le crucifix, et sont personellement ajournés a Paris, à ce moys de Mars venant, coram suprema curia, et universitate erucarum parrhissiensium, quare id factum est." Herminjard, i. 315.

[152] Fontaine, Histoire catholique, apud Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. de la Réform., liv. xii. The earliest Protestant chronicle, by Antoine Froment, of which there is a MS. fragment in the Library of Geneva, gives a slightly different form to Briçonnet's caution: "Autrefois, en leur preschant l'Évangile, il leur avoit dit, comme Sainct Paul escript au Gallates, que sy luy-mesme ou un Ange du ciel leur preschoit autre doctrine que celle qu'il leur preschoit, qu'ils ne [le] receussent pas." Herminjard, i. 158.

[153] Nisard, Histoire de la littérature française, i. 275. The only printed work in favor of which the claim of Lefèvre's translation to be the oldest in the French language could be disputed is the "Bible" of Guyars des Moulins, finished in 1297, and printed by order of Charles VIII. in 1487; but the greater part of this is a free translation, not of the Scriptures themselves, but of a summary—the "Historia scholastica" of Pierre le Mengeur (latinized "Comestor")—and is consequently no bible at all. See M. Charles Read, in Bulletin, i. 76, who remarks that, "everything considered, it may therefore be asserted that the translations of Lefèvre d'Étaples and of Olivetanus are the first versions without embellishment or gloss (non historiées et non glossées), and that thus the first two versions of the Bible into the language of the people are Protestant."

[154] The inventory of the library of the Count of Angoulême, father of Margaret and Francis I., consisting of nearly two hundred volumes, contains the title "Les Paraboles de Salomon, les Espistres Saint Jehan, les Espistres Saint Pol et l'Apocalipse, le tout en ung volume, escript en parchemin et à la main, et en françoys, couvert de velous changeant et a deux fermoeres, l'un aux armes de mon diet Seigneur, et l'autre aux armes de ma dicte dame." Aristotle, Boethius, Boccaccio, and Dante figure in the list, the latter both in Italian and in French. The inventory is printed in an appendix to the edition of the Heptameron of Margaret of Angoulême published by the Soc. dea bibliophiles français (Paris, 1853), a work enriched with many original documents of considerable value.

[155] This important letter of Lefèvre to Farel, July 6, 1524, first published in part from the MS. in the Geneva Library, in the Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. franç., xi. (1862), 212, is given in full by Herminjard, i. 220, etc.

[156] "O bone Deus, quanto exulto gaudio, cum percipio hanc pure agnoscendi Christum gratiam, jam bonam partem pervasisse Europæ! Et spero Christum tandem nostras Gallias hac benedictione invisurum."

[157] "Provinciam interpretandi populo promiscui sexus, quotidie una hora mane, epistolas Pauli lingua vernacula editas, non concionando, sed per modum lecturæ interpretando." Lefèvre to Farel, ubi supra, i. 222. He gives the names of four such "lectores puriores"—Gadon, Mangin, Neufchasteau, and Mesnil—of whom we know little.

[158] Parliament, however, as late as June 1, 1525, sustained his episcopal authority by prohibiting the monks from preaching in Meaux, whether in the morning or in the evening, when the bishop either himself preached or had preaching before him in that part of the day. Reg. of Parliament, Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, iv. 102.

[159] Gaillard, vi. 409.

[160] "L'estat par la froideur duquel tous les aultres sont gelléz." Briçonnet to Margaret of Angoulême, Dec. 22, 1521, Herminjard, i. 86.

[161] "Celluy qui tous ruyne." Same to same, Jan. 31, 1524, ibid., i. 186.

[162] "L'état qui contient tous les autres dans le devoir," as translated by Herminjard, i. 154.

[163] See both documents in Herminjard, i. 153 and 156.

[164] Instead of October 15, 1523, it is probable that these documents ought to be placed nearly, if not quite, two years later. See M. Herminjard's remarks on this difficult point, Correspondance des réformateurs, i. 158, note. The same uncertainty affects Briçonnet's subsequent pastoral, revoking the powers accorded to "Lutheran preachers," attributed to December 13, 1523, ibid., i. 171.

[165] Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme (Paris, 1682), liv. i. 11-14; Daniel, Histoire de France (Paris, 1755), x. 23.

[166] Registres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Église gallicane, iv. 102.

[167] "Et supplie la Cour qu'il soit interrogé en pleine cour, et non par Commissaires." Registres du parlement, Oct. 20, 1525, ibid., iv. 103.

[168] Registres du parlement, Nov. 29, 1525, where the Bishop of Meaux is ordered to pay 200 livres parisis for the trial of the heretics, prisoners from Meaux (Preuves des Libertez, iii. 166), and the receipt for the same (Ibid., ubi supra). This was, however, merely an application of the general prescription of Nov. 24, 1525, requiring all prelates to defray the expenses of the trial of any heretics discovered in their dioceses, with the right to indemnify themselves from the property of the convicted heretics (Ibid., iii. 165). So the Archbishop of Tours contributed to the expenses incurred in the trial of Jean Papillon, Feb. 5, 1526 (Ibid., iii. 167).

[169] Daniel, x. 23, 24; Gaillard, vi. 409-411.

[170] Neither the reason nor the precise time of his departure is known. It was apparently as early as 1523.

[171] See Haag, La France protestante, art. Farel; Dr. E. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Hagenbach, Leben d. Väter und Begründer der Reformirten Kirche, vii. 3, etc. A brief but very accurate sketch in Herminjard, i. 178, etc.

[172] MS. Seminary of Meaux, January 11, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.

[173] "Plusieurs peigneurs, cardeurs et autres gens de même trempe, non lettrés."

[174] MS. Seminary of Meaux, February 6, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.

[175] Compare for the date, Herminjard, i. 378, 389, 401. Gérard Roussel was ordered by parliament to be seized wherever found, etiam in loco sacro. So, too, were Caroli and Prévost. Jacques Lefèvre was cited to appear. Régistres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Égl. gall., iii. 102, 103.

[176] Farel to Pellican, 1556, Herminjard, i. 481.

[177] "Ita invigilent Verbo ecclesiarum ministri, ut, nulla pene hora diei, suum desit pabulum et quidem syncerum, ut nulla subsit palea aut fermenti pharisaici commissura."

[178] Roussel to Briçonnet, Strasbourg, Dec, 1525, Herminjard, i. 406, 407.

[179] Roussel to Farel, Meaux, Aug. 24, 1524, Herminjard, i. 271—a document that throws a flood of light upon the motives of the conduct of both Roussel and Lefèvre. A letter of the same date to Œcolampadius is, in some respects, even more instructive. Notice the pitiful weakness revealed in these sentences: "Reclamabunt episcopi, reclamabunt doctores, reclamabunt scholæ, assentiente populo, occurret Senatus (parliament). Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones?" Herminjard, i. 278. A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question.

[180] Pierre Toussain to Œcolampadius, Malesherbes, July 26, 1526, Herminjard, i. 447.

[181] Mandement de Guillaume Briçonnet an clergé de son diocèse, le 21 janvier, 1525, Herminjard, i. 320, etc.

[182] It may seem surprising that Jean Leclerc escaped the stake in punishment of his temerity. But the reason is found in the circumstance that he was tried, not for heresy, but for irreverence. This appears from the Registres du parlement for March 20, 1524/5. The interesting discussions of that session, printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, iii. (1854) 23, etc., establish the fact that the reformed doctrines were already making formidable headway in Paris and the adjoining towns. A brother of Bishop Briçonnet took a prominent part in the debate, and gave a deplorable view of the prevalence of impiety and heresy in the higher circles of society.

[183] For a description of the punishment, see Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France.

[184] "Vive Jésus Christ et ses enseignes!"

[185] Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées, attributed to Theodore Beza (Ed. of Lille, 1841), i. 4; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Geneva, 1560), fol. 46; Haag, La France protestante, art. Leclerc; Daniel, x. 23, who finds no more suitable epithet for Leclerc than "ce scélérat."

[186] At this time a city of the Empire, and not conquered by France until the reign of Henry II. (1552).

[187] The story of Leclerc's fortunes is told both by Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 46, and by the Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 4; but, strange to say, both these early authorities fall into the same error: they place the first arrest of Leclerc in 1523, and his death a year later. Almost all subsequent writers have implicitly followed their authority. The Registres du parlement de Paris, already referred to, March 20, 1524/5, fix the former event as having occurred only three days before—"depuis trois jours" (p. 27); while François Lambert's letter to the Senate of Besançon, dated August 15, 1525, expressly states that Leclerc was burned Saturday, July 22, 1525. Herminjard, i. 372. Jean Châtellain had been executed at Vic, in Lorraine, six months earlier (January 12, 1525). See P. Lambert to the Elector of Saxony, Herminjard, i. 346.

[188] In accordance with the uncertain orthography of the age, the name is variously written—Pauvan, Pauvant, Pavanne, or Pouvent.

[189] Pauvan's propositions, with the vindication by Saunier (or Saulnier) are recapitulated in the censure of the theological faculty, dated Dec. 9, 1525, and published in extenso among the documents appended to Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 36, etc. Professor Soldan (i. 107) and others are incorrect in placing the propositions and their condemnation by the Sorbonne subsequent to the abjuration, which in this very document the Sorbonne demands.

[190] Ibid., iv. 47.

[191] "You err, Master Jacques," Crespin tells us that Mazurier used to say, "You err, Master Jacques; for you have not looked into the depth of the sea, but merely upon the surface of the waters and waves." "You err, Master Jacques" became a proverbial expression in the mouths of the inhabitants of Meaux for a generation or more. Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 52 verso.

[192] "Tout nud, en sa chemise, criant mercy à Dieu et à la vierge Marie." Journal d'un bourgeois, ubi infra.

[193] His sentence seems to have been seven years' imprisonment in the priory of St. Martin des Champs, and it was the prior that denounced him to parliament. Ibid., ubi infra.

[194] Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 53; Hist. ecclés., i. 4; Haag, France prot., s. v. On the 26th of August, 1526, if, as is likely, he is the "jeune filz, escolier bénéficié, non aiant encore ses ordres de prestrise, nommé maistre ... natif de Thérouanne, en Picardie," whom the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris refers to—page 291—as having abjured on Christmas eve, 1525, and been burned "le mardi 28^e aoust, 1526." At any rate, as M. Herminjard has remarked, Beza and Crespin are certainly wrong in placing Pauvan's recantation and execution respectively a year too early (in 1524 and 1525, instead of 1525 and 1526). The date of the Sorbonne's judgment is decisive on this point.

[195] Our authority for the remark of the Parisian doctor, Pierre Cornu, is Farel, in a MS. note to a hitherto inedited letter of Pauvan, and in his speech at the discussion at Lausanne. Herminjard, i. 293, 294. Farel's application was not without pungency: "Votre foi est-elle si bien fondée qu'un jeune fils, qui encore n'avoit point de barbe, vous ait fait tant de dommage, sans avoir tant étudié ne veu, sans avoir aucun degré, et vous étiez tant?" The admirer of heroic fortitude will scarcely subscribe to the words of the Jesuit Daniel, Hist. de France, x. 24: "On ne donne place dans l'histoire à ces méprisables noms, que pour ne laisser ignorer la première origine de la funeste contagion," etc.

[196] Histoire ecclés., i. 4.

[197] Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François I^er, April 14, 1526, p. 284.

[198] Crespin, Actiones et monimenta, fol. 118.

[199] Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre; Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel. Bayle (Diet. s. v. Fèvre) maintains, on the authority of Melchior Adam's Life of Capito, that Lefèvre and Roussel were sent by Margaret of Angoulême on a secret mission to Strasbourg. Erasmus, in a letter of March, 1526, and Sleidan (lib. v. ad fin.) know nothing of this, and speak of the trip as merely a flight.

[200] Haag, ubi supra, vi. 507, note.

[201] Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre; Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 411. The boy, at this time Duke of Angoulême, did not assume the name of Charles until after his eldest brother's death. The Swiss cantons, acting as his sponsors, had given him the somewhat uncommon Christian name Abednego (Abdénago)! Herminjard, ii. 17, 195.

[202] The Duke of Orleans may have had sincere predilections for Protestantism. At least, it is barely possible that the very remarkable instructions given to his secretary, Antoine Mallet, when on the 8th of September, 1543, Charles sent him to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, were something besides mere diplomatic intrigue to secure for his father's projects the support of these Protestant princes. See, however, a fuller discussion of this incident farther on, Chapter VI.

[203] Margaret to Anne de Montmorency, Génin, Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, i. 279, and Herminjard, ii. 250.

[204] "Come un cavallo ch' ha un apostema stringendoli il naso non sente il cauterio."

[205] "Una retrattationcella." The letter of the Nuncio to Sanga, secretary of Clement VII., Brussels, December 30, 1531, appeared in H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana (ex Tabulariis Sanctæ Sedis Apostolicæ Secretis), Friburgi Brisgoviæ, 1861. I have called attention to its importance in the Bulletin de la Société de l'hist. du prot. franç., xiv. (1865), 345. M. Herminjard has given a French translation, ii. 386.

[206] This incident has been rejected as apocryphal by Bayle, and, after him, by Tabaraud (in the Biographie universelle), as well as more recently by Haag (France protestante). It has rested until now on the unsupported testimony of Hubert Thomas, secretary of the Elector Palatine, Frederick II., whom he accompanied on a visit to Charles V. in Spain. On his return the Elector fell sick at Paris, where he received frequent visits from the King and Queen of Navarre. It was on one of these occasions that Margaret related to him this story, in the hearing of the secretary. (It is reproduced in Jurieu, Histoire du Calvinisme, etc., Rotterdam, 1683, pt. i. 70.) Bayle objected that it was incredible that the reformers should have failed to allude to so striking and suggestive an occurrence. The objection has been scattered to the winds. With singular good fortune, M. Jules Bonnet has discovered among the hidden treasures of the Geneva Library an original memorandum in Farel's own handwriting, prefixed to a letter he had received from Michel d'Arande, fully confirming the discredited statements. "Jacobus Faber Stapulensis noster laborans morbo quo decessit, per aliquot dies ita perterritus fuit judicio Dei, ut actum de se vociferaret, dicens se æternum periisse, quod veritatem Dei non aperte professus fuerit, idque dies noctesque vociferando querebatur. Et cum a Gerardo Rufo admoneretur ut bono esset animo, Christo quoque fideret, is respondit: 'Nos damnati sumus, veritatem celavimus quam profiteri et testari debebamus.' Horrendum erat tam pium senem ita angi animo et tanto horrore judicii Dei concuti; licet tandem liberatus bene sperare cœperit ac perrexerit de Christo." Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., etc., xi. 215; Herminjard, iii. 400.

[207] "Quo tandem ex hoc profundo limo, in quo non est substantia, eripi queam." Michel d'Arande to Farel (1536 or 1537), Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., ubi supra; Herminjard, iii. 399, etc.

[208] Speaking of Roussel's as yet inedited MS., "Familière exposition du symbole et de l'oraison dominicale," Professor C. Schmidt, than whom no one has better studied the mysticism of the sixteenth century, remarks that the basis of the work is the doctrine of justification by faith, the sole authority invoked is that of the Scriptures, the only head of the church is Jesus Christ, the perfect church is the invisible church, the visible church is recognized by the preaching of the Gospel in its purity, and by the administration of the two sacraments as originally instituted. He adds that the doctrines of the Lord's Supper and of predestination are expounded in a thoroughly Calvinistic manner. See Professor S.'s excellent monograph, "Le mysticisme quiétiste en France au début de la réformation sous François premier," read before the Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., Bulletin, vi. 449, etc.

[209] Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina hæreseon hujus sæculi (Col. 1614), lib. vii. c. 3, p. 392.

[210] E. g., Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Roussel.

[211] Haag, France protestante, art. Gérard Roussel; Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 418; Flor. de Ræmond, ubi supra.

[212] He was born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494.

[213] See the fac-simile in the magnificent work of M. Niel, Portraits des personnages français les plus illustres du 16me siècle, Paris, 1848, 2 vols. fol.

[214] The envoy's description of Francis's curative power is interesting. "Ha una proprietà, o vero dono da Dio, come han tutti li rè di Francia, di far guarire li amalati di scrofule.... E questo lo fa in giorno solenne, come Pasqua, Natale e Nostra Donna. Si confessa e communica; dipoi tocca li amalati in croce al volto, dicendo: 'Il Rè ti tocca, e Iddio ti guarisca!'" Cavalli thinks there can be no doubt of the reality of the cures effected; otherwise, why should continually increasing numbers of sick folk come from the most distant countries, if they received no benefit? Relazioni Venete (Albèri), ser. i., i. 237. It must not be imagined, however, that the kings of France engrossed all virtue of this kind. The monarchs of England were wont to hallow on Good Friday certain rings which thenceforth guaranteed the wearer against epilepsy. These cramp-rings, as they were called, were no less in demand abroad than at home. Sir John Mason wrote from Brussels, April 25, 1555, that many persons had expressed the desire to obtain them, and begged Sir W. Petrie to interest himself in procuring him some of this year's blessing by Queen Mary. MSS. State Paper Office.

[215] The small size of the brain and the depression of the forehead indicated in all the different contemporary portraits of Francis have been noticed by M. Niel (Portraits, i. 10), who dryly adds that in view of them he might have been inclined to withhold the eulogies he has inserted in his notice of the monarch, "had he not recollected in time that the laws of phrenology are not infallible."

[216] Robertson, Charles V., iii. 396.

[217] Relazione di Francia (1538), Albèri, i. 203, 204. It will be noticed that Giustiniano wrote at a period when the youthful ardor of Francis had somewhat cooled down.

[218] The French king's proverbial ill-success gave rise to the taunt that his was "un esser savio in bocca e non in mente," but Marino Cavalli is charitably inclined to ascribe his misfortune rather to the lack of the right men to execute his designs, than to any fault of his own. Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. 282.

[219] "Sire, vous en seriez marri le premier, et vous en prendroit très mal, et y perdriez plus que le pape; car une nouvelle religion, mise parmi un peuple, ne demande après que changement du prince." Brantôme, M. l'Admiral de Chastillon, Œuvres, ix. 202.

[220] Brantôme, Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre. Also Homines ill.: François premier (Œuvres, vii. 256, 257).

[221] The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., v. 380, 381, publishes from a MS. in the library of the Louvre, an order from Francis I., countersigned by Bayard, directing his treasurer to pay to "Cecille de Viefville, dame des filles de joye suivans nostre court," the sum of forty-five livres tournois. This gift is to be shared with "les autres femmes de sa voccation," as she and they shall see fit, and to be received as "a New-Year's present for the first of January past, such as it has been customary from all time to make." The last clause may have been inserted for the purpose of palliating the disgraceful usage. This precious document is followed by Cecile's receipt, dated, like the order, Hesdin, February 18, 1539 (1540 New Style).

[222] Ch. de Sainte-Marthe, Oraison funèbre, 1550, apud Génin, i. 3.

[223]

Une doulceur assise en belle face,
Qui la beaulté des plus belles efface;
D'un regard chaste où n'habite nul vice;
. . . . . . .
Tons ces beaulx dons et mille davantaige
Sont en ung corps né de hault parentaige,
Et de grandeur tant droicte et bien formée,
Que faicte semble exprès pour estre aymée
D'hommes et dieux.

—Ined. Epistle of Marot to Margaret, prefixed to Génin, Notice, xiii., xiv. One of the two crayons of Margaret by contemporary artists, reproduced by Niel, Portraits des personnages illustres, etc., tome ii., was taken in early life; the other represents her as wearing the sombre dress she preferred in her last years.

[224] Vie politique de Marg. d' Angoulême, by Leroux de Lincy, prefixed to the Heptaméron (Ed. of the Soc. des bibliophiles), i. p. lxiv.

[225] "La serenissima regina di Navarra ... è donna di molto valore, e spirito grande, e che intervienne in tutti i consigli." Relaz. di Francesco Giustiniano, 1538, Albèri, i. 203.

[226] The document contained a proviso that, should Francis be liberated, the Dauphin was to restore to him the sovereignty for the term of his natural life. It was dated Madrid, November, 1525. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois, etc., xii. 237-244.

[227] "Le mercredy penultiesme jour de janvier, au dict an, ils furent espousez an diet lieu de Saint Germain (en Laye). Après furent faictes jouxtes et tournois et gros triomphes par l'espace de huict jours ou environ." Journal d'un bourgeois, 302. Olhagaray states the date differently, viz., January 24th; ubi infra, 488.

[228] See Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Béarn, et Navarre (Paris, 1609), 487.

[229] He was born April, 1503, and was consequently eleven years younger than Margaret.

[230] Catharine's bitter reproach addressed to her husband has become famous: "Had I been king, and you queen, we had been reigning in Navarre at this moment." Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 353. Olhagaray gives another of her speeches: "O Roy vous demeurés Jean d'Albret, et ne pensés plus au Royaume de Navarre que vous avez perdu par vostre nonchalance." Ubi supra, 455.

[231] The Spanish conquest of Navarre is narrated at length by Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 347-367. See also Olhagaray, 454, etc., and Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrénées, iv. 233-271. It will be borne in mind that the great crime of John d'Albret was his adhesion to Louis XII. of France, in his determined struggle with Julius II.; and that Ferdinand's title was justified by a pretended bull of this Pope giving the kingdoms of his enemies to be a prey to the first invader that might seize them in behalf of the Pontifical See. The bull, however, is now generally admitted to be a Spanish forgery. See Prescott, ubi supra. Baron A. de Ruble observes (Mém. de La Huguerye, 1, note): "On sait aujourd'hui que cette bulle est apocryphe."

[232] Brantôme does, indeed, accuse Henry of using severity toward his wife, on account of her religious innovations, until threatened with the displeasure of Francis; but the truth seems to be that the King of Navarre was himself not ill-disposed to the religious reformation.

[233] M. Herminjard has been criticised for inserting too many of Bishop Briçonnet's epistles in the first volume of his Correspondance des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française. M. Génin also gives specimens of the bishop's bombast, observing maliciously: "Si Briçonnet argumenta en pareil style aux conciles de Pise et du Latran, il dut embarrasser beaucoup ses adversaires." Lettres de Marg. d'Angoulême, i. 128.

[234] "O impiam et inverecundam arrogantiam," etc. See chapter I., p. 24.

[235] Determinatio Facultatis, etc., Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 10, etc.; Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum (Opera Melanchthonis), i. 366, etc., 371, etc.

[236] Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum decretum Philippi Melanchthonis pro Luthero apologia, Bretschneider, i. 399-416.

[237] Lettre de la faculté de théologie à la reine, Oct. 7, 1523, Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 16, 17.

[238] Articules concernans les responces que après meure délibération a fait la faculté de théologie. Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 17-21.

[239] "Qui [les livres de Luther] furent imprimez et publiez par toutes les villes d'Alemaigne et par tout le royaume de France." Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 94.

[240] Ibid., 104.

[241] "Ego confidenter loquar, credens in Domino quod verum sit, quod plus syncerioris theologiæ in libris prædictis continetur, quam in omnibus scriptis omnium monachorum, qui a principio fuerunt."

[242] A contemporary song (1525) denouncing woes against Strasbourg for harboring the "Lutherans," contains these doggerel lines:

"Ce faulx Lambert, hérétique mauldict,
Te fait prendre la dance
De l'infemal déduyt."

Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., ix. (1860) 381.

[243] Margaret of Angoulême, out of all patience, at last sent word requesting him to desist from these untimely letters to her brother—"qu'il n'escripva plus ny au Roy ny à aultres." Toussain to Farel, December 17, 1524, Herminjard, i. 313.

[244] Witness the malignant satisfaction exhibited by the Nuncio Aleander when noting the reported death of Lambert and his entire family: "Mi ha detto hoggi, che Francesco Lamberto d'Avignon, qual fugito dal monasterio, et ito astar un tempo con Luther ha scritto infiniti libri contra la Chiesa di Dio, quest' anno in terra del Langravio di Hassia insieme con la moglie et figliuoli tutti miserabilmente, et come da miracolo, in gran calamità son crepati." Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, November 25, 1531, Vatican Library, Laemmer, Monumenta, 90. See Lambert's autobiographical sketch, entitled: "Rationes propter quas Minoritarum conversationem habitumque rejecit," Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 21-28, and translated, Herminjard, i. 118, etc.; F. W. Hassencamp, Fr. Lambert von Avignon; Haag, France prot., s. v.; Baum, Lambert von Avignon.

[245] So says Lambert, who states: "Novi ilium ex intimis; fuit enim mihi perinde atque Jonathas Davidi." Præf. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium antiquarium, vi. 490.

[246] The Bishop of Metz was John, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle of the more notorious Cardinal Charles. Châtellain had written a poetical chronicle of Metz reaching to the year 1524. A friendly hand continued it, and recorded the fate of Châtellain, described as

"Augustin, grand Docteur
Qui estoit grand prédicateur."

The chronicle, which certainly possesses no striking literary merit, is printed among the Preuves of Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine (Nancy, 1748), iii. pp. cclxxii., etc.

[247] Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 44-46.

[248] "Quorum (Antichristi prophetæ) fæx in eadem civitate tam multa est, ut eosdem nongentos esse ferant." Lamberti præf. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium Antiq., vi. 485, etc.

[249] Ibid., ubi supra.

[250] Hist. de l'église gallicane, apud Gaillard, vi. 404.

[251] The letter is given by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 50; also Gerdes., iv. (Doc), 48-50.

[252] Gerdes., iv. 51; Crespin, fol. 49-52; Haag, s. v.

[253] The incident, it must be confessed, is by no means above suspicion (see Kirchhofer, Life of Wm. Farel, London ed., p. 40, and Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, p. 6), although, as Merle d'Aubigné observes, Hist. of the Reformation, bk. xii. c. 13, it is in keeping with Farel's character. Œcolampadius, foreseeing the possibility of his indulging in such inconsiderate words and actions, warned him, as early as Aug. 19, 1524, to temper his zeal with mildness, and to treat his opponents rather as was most expedient, than as they deserved to be treated. Herminjard, i. 265-267.

[254] "Ceste hérésie luthérienne, qui commance fort à pulluler par deça. Et jam plures de cineribus valde (Valdo) renascuntur plantulæ." Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Noel Beda, January 23, 1525. The title of primate was assumed both by the Archbishop of Sens and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as "Primat des Gaules et de Germanie"); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopédie méthodique, s. v. Sens, and Lyon.

[255] Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 408.

[256] Registres du parlement, Feb. 26, 1417/8, Preuves des Libertez, i. 124, etc.

[257] Yet the trial of Aimé Maigret had been specially committed by Louise to the Sorbonne, as early as January, 1525 (Letter of the Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Beda, Jan. 23, 1525, Herminjard, i. 326); and Zwingle knew, in March, of a more or less successful effort to convince the regent that the evangelical doctrines were subversive of peace—the proof alleged being drawn from Germany, where "everything was turned upside down." Dedication to Francis I., prefixed to De vera et falsa religione commentarius, Herminjard, i. 351.

[258] See Mézeray's unfavorable portrait of the unscrupulous Duprat, Abrégé chron., iv. 584.

[259] The four were Philippe Pot, President in the chambre des enquêtes, and André Verjus, a counsellor, from parliament, and Guillaume Du Chesne and Nicholas Le Clerc, doctors of theology. For the first on the list, Jacques de la Barde was soon after substituted. Registres du parlement, March 20, 1524/5, Preuves des Libertez, i. 164.

[260] Registres du parlement, ubi supra.

[261] Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 102.

[262] Registres du parlement, July 29, 1458, Preuves des Libertez, i. 138.

[263] "Un inquisiteur de la foi n'a capture ou arrét en ce royaume, sinon par l'aide et autorité du bras seculier." Pithou, Essaie, art. 37.

[264] "Nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques, semotâ executione a definitiva, si en est appellé." Registres du parlement, Preuves des Libertez, iii. 164.

[265] "Nos quoque comprobavimus ... sicut per alias nostras sub plumbo literas poteritis cognoscere." Registres du parlement, ubi supra.

[266] Recueil des anc. lois françaises, par Jourdan, Decrusy et Isambert, xii. 232-237.

[267] Isambert, ubi supra.

[268] The author of the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois dé Paris, 383, 384. His description, written in 1528, is interesting: "Ledict Barquin avoit environ 50 ans, et portoit ordinairement robbe de veloux, satin et damas, et choses (chausses) d'or, et estoit de noble lignée et moult grand clerc, expert en science et subtil, mais néantmoins il faillit en son sens." Erasmus makes him some seven years younger, Letter to Utenhoven, July 1, 1529, Opera, ii. 1206, seq.; and Herminjard, Correspondance des réformateurs, ii. 183, seq.

[269] His account is important, but too full for insertion here. See the letter above quoted.

[270] Arrêt du parlement, Aug. 5, 1523, Haag, France prot. s. v. Berquin.

[271] Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170; Haag, s. v.; Erasmus, Opera, ubi supra.

[272] "Etiam in loco sacro." Registres du parlement, January 8, 1526, Preuves des Libertez, iii., 166.

[273] Margaret's gratitude to Montmorency for his kind offices is very fully attested by a passage in an extant letter (Génin, Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 1ère Coll., No. 54): "Vous merciant du plaisir que m'avés fait pour le pauvre Berquin, que j'estime aultant que si c'estoit moy mesmes, et par cela pouvés vous dire que vous m'avés tirée de prison, etc." To Francis she expressed the assurance "que Celuy pour qui je croy qu'il a souffert aura agréable la miséricorde que pour son honneur avez fait à son serviteur et au vostre." Ibid., 2de Coll., No. 35.

[274] The chief authorities for the first two imprisonments of De Berquin are the long and important letter of Erasmus, to which I shall have occasion again to refer (Opera, ii. 1206, seq.), Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948, 984, 985; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170, 277, 278; Haag, s. v.

[275] It is somewhat amusing, in the light of subsequent events, to read such outbursts of sisterly enthusiasm as this: "O que bien-heureuse sera vostre brefve prison, par qui Dieu tant d'ames deslivrera de celle d'infidélité et esternelle damnacion." Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 2de Coll., No. 5, Lyons, May 1525. See, too, 1ère Coll., No. 26, addressed to Montmorency.

[276] Margaret's letters to Count Hohenlohe were translated into Latin and published by himself. M. Génin has rendered them into French, and inserted them in his Lettres de Marg. d'Angoulême, 1ère Coll., Nos. 48-51. The letter of July 5, 1526, is the most important.

[277] This precious bit of special pleading deserves notice. In the instructions of the king to the Archbishop of Lyons, to be read at the council in that city, Francis thus expressed himself: "Et combien que pour ung tel et si bon œuvre que celluy qui se offre de présent, le dict sire fut conseillé, que juridiquement et par tous droicts divins et humains, il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre, subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manières de gens, de quelque qualité, auctorité, condition qu'ils fuissent, soient d'église, nobles, ou du tiers et commun estat, au paiement de la ditte rançon, etc." Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1137.

[278] The reason assigned for not convoking the States General in proper form, viz., that time did not permit the necessary delay, must be considered scarcely sufficient to explain the irregularity. Ibid., ubi supra.

[279] "Fist un discours farci de latin et de citations de l'Écriture, dans lequel il conclut que le traité de Madrid estoit nul." Isambert, xii. 299.

[280] The declaration is significant and noteworthy as the first of many similar assurances. Among the documents in Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois françaises, is a full account of the proceedings of the notables, xii. 292-301.

[281] If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still. Barthélemi de Chassanée this very year (1527) chronicles the destruction of "Lutheranism" in France as an accomplished fact! The passage is not unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the fleurs-de-lis on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus, videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam sanatam esse a morsu pestiferi serpentis Lutheri, qui infinitas hæreses in fide Christiana seminavit, quæ fuerunt extirpatæ a Rege nostro Francisco Christianissimo, qui non cessat insudare, ut Clemens summus Pontifex a sua Sede ejectus restituatur, quem Carolus Borbonius dux exercitus Caroli Austriaci electi in Imperatorem, in urbe obsederat hoc anno Domini 1527 die 6 Maii." Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 143.

[282] Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.

[283] The reader may, if his patience will hold out, wade through the prolix decrees of the Council of Sens as published by Cardinal Duprat in 1529, and printed in Labbei Concilia (Venice, 1732), xix. 1149-1202. It is worthy of remark that the confiscation of the property of condemned heretics, if laymen, to the state, is ordered, "tanquam reorum læsæ majestatis." Fol. 1159.

[284] Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139.

[285] The words of the decree are sufficiently distinct: "Illam plurimum gravem et onerosam ecclesiis, laicis vero contemtibilem, sacerdotum multitudinem, qui solent plerumque illiterati, moribus inculti, servilibus operibus addicti, imberbes, inopes, fictitiis titulis ad sacros ordines obrepere, non sine magno status clericalis opprobrio." Ibid., xix. fol. 1128. The decrees of the councils of Bourges and Lyons are given in Labbei Concilia, xix. 1041-1048, and 1095 etc.

[286] The image was affixed to the house of the Sieur de Beaumont, at the corner of the Rue des Hosiers and the Rue des Juifs. Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676.

[287] The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi Françoys I^er" (edited by G. Guiffrey, Paris, 1860) may serve as an index of the popular feeling: "La nuict du dimenche, dernier jour de may, ... par quelque ung pire que ung chien mauldict de Dieu, fut rompue et couppée la teste à une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut une grosse horreur à la crestienté." Page 66.

[288] The silver image, though protected by an iron grating, fared no better than its predecessor. Stolen before the death of Francis, it was succeeded by a wooden statue, and, when this was destroyed by "heretics," by one of marble! The detailed accounts of the expiatory processions in Félibien, ii. 982, 983, in the Régistres du parlement, ibid., iv. 677-679, in G. Guiffrey, appendix to "Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er," 446-459, from MSS. Nat. Lib., in Gaillard, vi. 434, 435, and in the Journal d'un bourgeois, 348-351, give a vivid view of the picturesque ceremonial of the times. It must have been a very substantial compensation for the trouble to which the unknown author of the outrage of the Rue des Rosiers put the clergy, that the mutilated statue of the Virgin, having been placed above the altar in the church of St. Gervais, was said to have wrought notable miracles, and even to have raised two children from the dead! Journal d'un bourgeois, ubi supra. See also "Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er," 67, and especially the poem (Ibid., appendix, 459-464), in twenty-five stanzas of eight lines each, which, I fear, has nothing to recommend it, unless it be length!

[289] May, 1530. Félibien, ii 988, 989; Journal d'un bourgeois, 410.

[290] "Quæris, quid profecerim? Tot modis deterrens, addidi animum."

[291] Erasmus to Utenhoven, ubi supra; also his letter to Vergara, Sept. 2, 1527, and Beda's Apology, Herminjard, ii. 38, 39, 40.

[292] Erasmus to Utenhoven, ubi supra.

[293] It was one of the great merits of Francis I., in the eyes of De Thou, the historian, that he had drawn Budé from comparative obscurity, and, following his wise counsels, founded the Collége Royale. Erasmus styled him "The Wonder of France" (De Thou, liv. iii., i. 233), and Scævole de Ste. Marthe, "omnium, qui hoc patrumque sæculo vixere, sine controversia doctissimus" (Elog. 3). He was at this time one of the maîtres de requêtes. Crespin, fol. 58.

[294] Journal d'un bourgeois, 378.

[295] The series of letters ends with a prayer which it would have been difficult, we must suppose, for a brother to resist: "Il vous plera (plaira), Monseigneur, faire en sorte que l'on ne die (dise) point que l'eslongnement vous ait fait oblier vostre très-humble et très-obéissante subjette et seur Marguerite." Génin, 2de Coll., No. 52.

[296] A MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, printed by M. Génin (i. 218, etc.), and G. Guiffrey, Cronique, etc., 76, note, gives these and other interesting details, which are in part confirmed by Erasmus.

[297] Ibid., ubi supra.

[298] It was a slight suggestion of mercy that prompted the judges to permit him to be strangled before his body was consigned to the flames.

[299] "Ce qui fut faict et expédié ce mesme jour en grande diligence, affin qu'il ne fût recourru du Roy ne de madame la Regente, qui estoit lors à Bloys, etc." Journal d'un bourgeois, 383.

[300] For De Berquin's history, see Erasmus, ubi supra; Journal d'un bourgeois, 378, etc.; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (ed. of 1560), fol. 57-59; Histoire ecclés., i. 5; Félibien, ii. 985; Haag, s. v.

[301] Journal d'un bourgeois, and Hist. ecclés., ubi supra.

[302] So he is styled by Martin of Beauvais, writing some few months later, in a sufficiently bold plea for the use of fire and fagot: "Si vero hæresiarchæ Berquini, et suorum sequacium pervicacia delibutus (hæreticus) incorrigibilis videatur, ne fortassis plusquam vipereum venenum latenter surrepat, et sanos inficere possit, subito auferte eum de medio vestrum, execrantes atque aversantes illius perversitatem, et abscisum velut palmitem aridum (juxta Joannis sententiam) subjectis ignibus torrere facite." Paraclesis catholica Franciæ ad Francos, ut fortes in Fide et Vocatione qua vocati sunt, permaneant, authore Martino Theodorico Bellovaco, Juris Cæsarei Professore (Parisiis, 1539), p. 14.—See note at the end of this chapter.

[303] F. W. Barthold, Deutschland und die Hugenoten, i. 15; Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 115-120.

[304] Mézeray, Abrégé chronologique, iv. 577.

[305] Soldan, i. 121.

[306] October 28, 1533.

[307] "Con mala sodisfazione di tutta la Francia, perchè pare ad ogniuno che Clemente pontefice abbia gabbato questo rè cristianissimo." Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Ven., Albèri, i. 191.

[308] Catharine de' Medici was born April 13, 1519.

[309] These interesting particulars are contained in a MS. letter in the Zurich Archives (probably written by Oswald Myconius to Joachim Vadian). The writer had them directly from the mouth of Guillaume du Bellay, the French ambassador, who was with the king at the interview of Marseilles. Du Bellay also gave some details of his own conversations with Clement. The latter freely admitted that there were some things that displeased him in the mass, but naturally wanted so profitable an institution to be treated tenderly and cautiously. Correspond. des réformateurs, iii. 183-186.

[310] The truth respecting Toulouse probably lies about midway between the censures of the Huguenot and the eulogy of the Roman Catholic historian. According to the author of the Histoire ecclésiastique, the parliament was the most sanguinary in France, the university careless of letters, the population jealous of any proficiency in liberal studies. According to Florimond de Ræmond, writing somewhat later, Toulouse was worthy of eternal praise, because, notwithstanding a marvellous confluence of strangers from all parts, and in spite of being completely surrounded by regions infected with heresy, it had so persisted in the faith as to contain within its walls not a single family that did not live in conformity with the prescriptions of the church! Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina hæreseon hujus sæculi, ii. 486.

[311] Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 64.

[312] Florimond de Ræmond, ii. 394, 395.

[313] March 6, 1535. Journal d'un bourgeois, 453.

[314] Hist. ecclés., i. 9; Crespin, ubi supra.

[315] John Calvin gives a contemporary's account in a letter to François Daniel from Paris, October, 1533. Herminjard, Correspond. des réformateurs, iii. 106, etc.; and translated in Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, i. 36, etc. See also Jean Sturm's letter of about the same date, Herminjard, iii. 93.

[316] Calvin's letter above quoted, one of the oldest of his MS. autographs. Dr. Paul Henry, in his valuable Life and Times of John Calvin (Eng. trans., i. 37) inadvertently makes Cop rector of the Sorbonne, an office that never existed.

[317] A single sentence may serve to indicate the distinctness with which this is asserted: "Evangelium remissionem peccatorum et justificationem gratis pollicetur; neque enim accepti sumus Deo quod legi satisfaciamus, sed ex sola Christi promissione, de qua qui dubitat pie vivere non potest, et gehennæ incendium sibi parat." Opera Calvini, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, x. 34.

[318] Some officious pen has indeed stricken out from the MS. the sentence, "Quod nos consecuturos spero, si beatissimam Virginem solenni illo præconio longe omnium pulcherrimo salutaverimus: Ave gratia plena!" But on the margin the sensible Nicholas Colladon, a colleague of Beza and an early biographer of Calvin, has written the words: "Hæc, quia illis temporibus danda sunt, ne supprimenda quidem putavimus."

[319] "Ægre fert Facultas injuriam toti unversitati illatam, quod tractus fuerit ad superiorem Judicem ... summus suus magistratus, et, eam ob rem, censet Facultas ut ejus accusatores et qui supplicationem superiori Judici porrexerunt, citentur in facie universitatis, causas rei allaturi." Bullæus, vi. 238, apud Herminjard, iii. 117, note. See many interesting particulars respecting the privileges claimed by the university, in Pasquier, Recherches de la France, liv. iii. ch. 29.

[320] He was to have been thrown into the Conciergerie. See Beza's preface to Calvin's Com. on Joshua, 1565, apud Herminjard, iii. 118, note. Parliament complained to Francis, and the latter in his reply, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, ordered proceedings to be instituted for the capture of Cop and the punishment of the person who had facilitated his flight by giving him warning. Francis to parliament, Herminjard, iii. 118. A reward of 300 crowns was accordingly offered for the apprehension of the fugitive rector, dead or alive. Martin Bucer to Amb. Blaurer, January, 1534, Herminjard, iii. 130.

[321] A fragment of Cop's address—about the first third—was discovered by M. Jules Bonnet in the MSS. of the Library of Geneva, bearing on the margin the note: "Hæc Joannes Calvinus propria manu descripsit, et est auctor." This portion is printed in Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 418-420, and Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, ix. 873-876. Merle d'Aubigné used it in his Hist. of the Ref. in the time of Calvin, ii. 198, etc. Still more fortunate than M. Bonnet, Messrs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss very recently found a complete copy of the same address in the archives of one of the churches of Strasbourg. The newly found portion is of great interest. Calvini Op., x. (1872), 30-36.

[322] Calvin to Fr. Daniel (1534), Bonnet, i. 41; Histoire ecclés., i. 9.

[323] Francis I. to Council of Berne, Marseilles, Oct. 20, 1533, MS. Berne Archives, Herminjard, iii. 95, 96.

[324] Berne was accustomed to give and take hard blows. So, although the chancellor of the canton endorsed on the king's missive the words, "Rude lettre du Roi, ... relative aux Farel," the council was not discouraged; but, when sending two envoys, about a month later, to the French court, instructed them, among other things, again to intercede for a brother of Farel. Herminjard, iii. 96, note.

[325] Du Bellay was himself believed, not without reason, to have sympathy for the reformed doctrine, and it was under his auspices, as well as those of the King and Queen of Navarre, that the evangelical preachers had lately held forth in the pulpits of the capital. See, for instance, Bucer to Blaurer, Jan., 1534, Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 130.

[326] Francis I.'s letter to Du Bellay, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, MS. Dupuy Coll., Bibl. nat., Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., i. 437. His orders to parliament of same date, Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 114, etc.

[327] Francis to parliament, ubi supra, iii. 116.

[328] Melanchthon to Du Bellay, Aug. 1, 1534, Opera (Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum), ii. 740.

[329] This is only a brief summary of the most essential points in these strange articles, which may be read entire in Melanch. Opera, ubi supra, ii. 744-766.

[330] Ibid., ii. 775, 776.

[331] See the interesting letter of a young Strasbourg student at Paris, Pierre Siderander, May 28, 1533, Herminjard, Correspondance des réformateurs, iii. 58, 59. The refrain of one placard,

"Au feu, au feu! c'est leur répère!
Faiz-en justice! Dieu l'a permys,"

gave Clément Marot occasion to reply in a couple of short pieces, the longer beginning:

"En l'eau, en l'eau, ces folz séditieux."

[332] Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Ed. of 1560), fol. 64.

[333] Bulletin, ix. 27, 28.

[334] Merle d'Aubigné, on the authority of the hostile Florimond de Ræmond, ascribes it to Farel. But the style and mode of treatment are quite in contrast with those of Farel's "Sommaire," republished almost precisely at this date; while many sentences are taken verbatim from another treatise, "Petit Traicte de l'Eucharistie," unfortunately anonymous, but which there is good reason to suppose was written by Marcourt. The author of the latter avows his authorship of the placard. See the full discussion by Herminjard, Correspondance des réformateurs, iii. 225, note, etc.

[335] Courault was foremost in his opposition. Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fols. 64, 65.

[336] "Qui estes pire que bestes, en vos badinages lesquels vous faites à l'entour de vostre dieu de paste, duquel vous vous jouez comme un chat d'une souris: faisans des marmiteux, et frappans contre vostre poictrine, après l'avoir mis en trois quartiers, comme estans bien marris, l'appelans Agneau de Dieu, et lui demandans la paix."

[337] This singular placard is given in extenso by Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. (Doc.) 60-67; Haag, France prot., x. pièces justif., 1-6; G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er, Appendix, 464-472.

[338] Journal d'un bourgeois, 442. Not Blois, as the Hist. ecclésiastique, i. 10, and, following it, Soldan, Merle d'Aubigné, etc., state. Francis had left Blois as early as in September for the castle of Amboise, see Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 231, 226, 236.

[339] "Ne me puis garder de vous dire qu'il vous souviengne de l'opinion que j'avois que les vilains placars estoient fait par ceux guiles cherchent aux aultres." Marg. de Navarre to Francis I., Nérac, Dec., 1541, Génin, ii. No. 114. Although Margaret's supposition proved to be unfounded, it was by no means so absurd as the reader might imagine. At least, we have the testimony of Pithou, Seigneur de Chamgobert, that a clergyman of Champagne confessed that he had committed, from pious motives, a somewhat similar act. The head of a stone image of the Virgin, known as "Our Lady of Pity," standing in one of the streets of Troyes, was found, on the morning of a great feast-day in September, 1555, to have been wantonly broken off. There was the usual indignation against the sacrilegious perpetrators of the deed. There were the customary procession and masses by way of atonement for the insult offered to high Heaven. But Friar Fiacre, of the Hôtel-Dieu, finding himself some time later at the point of death, and feeling disturbed in conscience, revealed the fact that from religious considerations he had himself decapitated the image, "in order to have the Huguenots accused of it, and thus lead to their complete extermination!" Recordon, Protestantisme en Champagne, ou récits extraits d'un MS. de N. Pithou (Paris, 1863), 28-30.

[340] A. F. Didot, Essai sur la typographie, in Encyclop. moderne, xxvi. 760, apud Herminjard, iii. 60.

[341] That is, 1535 New Style. For it will remembered that, until 1566, the year in France began with Easter, instead of with the first day of January. Leber, Coll. de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, viii. 505, etc.

[342] "Combien que ... nous eussions prohibé et défendu que nul n'eust dès lors en avant à imprimer ou faire imprimer aulcuns livres en nostre royaulme, sur peine de la hart." As neither of these disgraceful edicts was formally registered by parliament, they are both of them wanting in the ordinary records of that body, and in all collections of French laws. The first seems, indeed, to have disappeared altogether. M. Crapelet, Études sur la typographie, 34-37, reproduces the second, dated St. Germain-en-Laye, February 23, 1534/5, from a volume of parliamentary papers labelled "Conseil." Happily, the preamble recites the cardinal prescription of the previous and lost edict, as given above in the text. M. Merle d'Aubigné carelessly places the edict abolishing printing after, instead of before, the great expiatory procession. Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, iii. 140.

[343] Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 997.

[344] Soissons MS., Bulletin, xi. 255.

[345] I. e., gaînier, sheath-or scabbard-maker. Hist. ecclésiastique, i. 10; Journal d'un bourgeois, 444; see Varillas, Hist. des révol. arrivées dans l'Eur. en matière de rel., ii. 222.

[346] "Qui ad se ea pericula spectare non putabant, qui non contaminati erant eo scelere, hi etiam in partem pœnarum veniunt. Delatores et quadruplatores publice comparantur. Cuilibet simul et testi et accusatori in hac causa esse licet." J. Sturm to Melanchthon, Paris, March 4, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum, ii. 855, etc.

[347] The name and the affliction of this first victim give Martin Theodoric of Beauvais an opportunity, which he cannot neglect, to compare him with a pagan malefactor and contrast him with a biblical personage. "Hunc gladium ultorem persenserunt quam plurimi degeneres et alienigenæ in flexilibus perversarum doctrinarum semitis obambulantes; inter alios, paralyticus Lutheranus Neroniano Milone perniciosior. Cui malesano opus erat salutifer Christus, ut sublato erroris grabato, viam Veritatis insequutus fuisset. At vero elatus, in funesto sacrilegi cordis desiderio perseverans, flammis combustus cum suis participibus seditiosis Gracchis, exemplum sui cunctis hæreticis relinquens deperiit. Et peribunt omnes sive plebeii, sive primates," etc. Paraclesis Franciæ (Par. 1539), 5.

[348] The Journal d'un bourgeois, 444-452, gives an account, in the briefest terms and without comment, of the sentences pronounced and executed. See also G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy François I^er, 111-113.

[349] The real message sent by Francis I. to his mother, after the disaster of Pavia, was quite another thing from the traditional sentence: "Tout est perdu sauf l'honneur." What he wrote was: "Madame, pour vous avertir comme je porte le ressort de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur et la vie sauve," etc. Papiers d'État du Card, de Granvelle, i. 258. It is to be feared that, if saved in Italy, his honor was certainly lost in Spain, where, after vain attempts to secure release by plighting his faith, he deliberately took an oath which he never meant to observe. So, at least, he himself informed the notables of France on the 16th of December, 1527: "Et voulurent qu'il jurast; ce qu'il fist, sachant ledict serment n'estre valable, au moyen de la garde qui luy fust baillée, et qu'il n'estoit en sa liberté." Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franç., xii. 292.

[350] Registres de l'hôtel de ville. Félibien, pièces justif., v. 345. In the preceding account these records, together with those of parliament (ibid., iv. 686-688), the narrative of Félibien himself (ii. 997-999), and the Soissons MS. (Bulletin, xi. 254, 255), have been chiefly relied upon. See also Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er, 113-121.

[351] "En sorte que si un des bras de mon corps estoit infecté de cette farine, je le vouldrois coupper; et si mes enfans en estoient entachez, je les vouldrois immoler." Voltaire (Hist. du parlement de Paris, i. 118), citing the substance of this atrocious sentiment from Maimbourg and Daniel, who themselves take it from Mézeray, says incredulously: "Je ne sais où ces auteurs ont trouvé que François premier avait prononcé ce discours abominable." M. Poirson answers by giving as authority Théodore de Bèze (Hist. ecclés., i. 13). But on referring to the documentary records from the Hôtel de Ville, among the pièces justificatives collected by Félibien, v. 346, the reader will find the speech of Francis inserted at considerable length, and apparently in very nearly the exact words employed. The contemporary Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er, giving the fullest version of the speech (pp. 121-12), attributes to the king about the same expressions.

[352] Histoire ecclés., i. 13.

[353] Histoire ecclés., ubi supra.

[354] "Une espèce d'estrapade où l'on attachoit les criminels, que les bourreaux, par le moyen d'une corde, guindoient en haut, et les laissoient ensuite tomber dans le feu à diverses reprises, pour faire durer leur supplice plus longtems." Félibien, ii. 999.

[355] Gerdes, Hist. Evang. renov., iv. 109. For the nature of the penalty, see Bastard D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 425, note on punishments.

[356] When John Sturm wrote, March 4th, eighteen—when Latomus wrote, somewhat later, twenty-four—adherents of the Reformation had suffered capitally. Bretschneider, Corp. Reform., ii. 855, etc. "Plusieurs aultres héréticques en grant nombre furent après bruslez à divers jours," says the Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er, p. 129, "en sorte que dedans Paris on ne véoit que potences dressées en divers lieux," etc.

[357] G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er, 130-132; Soissons MS. in Bulletin, etc., xi. 253-254. We may recognize, among the misspelt names, those, for example, of Pierre Caroli, doctor of theology and parish priest of Alençon, already introduced to our notice; Jean Retif, a preacher; François Berthault and Jean Courault, lately associated in preaching the Gospel under the patronage of the Queen of Navarre; besides the scholar Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, and Guillaume Féret, who brought the placards from Switzerland.

[358] Under the head of Sacramentarians were included all who, like Zwingle, denied the bodily presence of Christ in or with the elements of the eucharist.

[359] "De ne lire, dogmatiser, translater, composer ni imprimer, soit en public ou en privé, aucune doctrine contrariant à la foy chrétionne." Declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535, Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franç., xii. 405-407. See also a similar declaration, May 31, 1536, ibid., xii. 504.

[360] Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 458, 459.

[361] Neantmoins Dieu le créateur, luy estant en ce monde, a plus usé de miséricorde que de rigueur, et qu'il ne faut aucunes fois user de rigueur, et que c'est une cruelle mort de faire brusler vif un homme, dont parce il pourroit plus qu'autrement renoncer la foy et la loy. Ibid., ubi supra.

[362] "Et le très-crestien et bon roy François premier du nom, à la prière du pape, pardonna à tous, excepté a ceulx qui avoient touché à l'honneur du saint sacrement de l'autel." Soissons MS., Bulletin, xi. 254. Sturm to Melanchthon, July 6, 1535, says: "Pontificem etiam aiunt æquiorem esse, et haud paulo meliorem quam fuerunt cæteri. Omnino improbat illam suppliciorum crudelitatem, et de hac re dicitur misisse [literas ad Regem]." Herminjard, iii. 311. Cf. Erasmus Op., 1513.

[363] "Sapendo, come sua Maestà m'ha detto, che Cesare in Fiandra aveva sospeso ogni esecuzione di morte contro questi eretici, ha anche egli concesso che contra ogni sorte di eretici si proceda come avanti, ma citra mortem, eccetto i sacramentarii." Relazione del clarissimo Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Venete, i. 155.

[364] Francis I. to the German Princes, February 1, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., ii. 828, etc.

[365] Sturm to Melanchthon, March 4, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., ii. 855, etc.

[366] A letter of Voré is found in Bretschneider, ubi supra, ii, 859.

[367] Melanchthon to Sturm, May 5, 1535, ibid., ii. 873.

[368] Ibid., ii. 879. The address was, "Dilecto nostro Philippo Melanchthoni."

[369] "Nihil est quod de vestro congressu non sperem," are Cardinal du Bellay's words, June 27th. Ibid., ii. 880, 881.

[370] Ibid., ii. 904, 905. The university had been temporarily removed from Wittemberg to Jena, on account of the prevalence of the plague.

[371] Luther to the Elector of Saxony, Aug. 17, 1535, Works (Ed. Dr. J. K. Innischer), lv. 103.

[372] August 28, 1535. The reasons alleged to Francis were, the injurious rumors the mission might give rise to, and the damage to the university from Melanchthon's absence. At some future time, the elector said, he would permit Melanchthon to visit the French king, should his Majesty still desire him to do so, and present hinderances be removed.

[373] "Subindignabundus hinc discessit." Luther to Justus Jonas, Aug. 19.

[374] "Daneben was eurer Person halb, dessgleichen auch in Sachen des Evangelii für Trost, Hoffnung oder Zuversicht zu dem Franzosen zu haben, ist wohl zu bedenken, dieweil vormals wenig Treue oder Glaube von ihm gehalten, wie solches die öffentliche Geschicht anzeigen." Letter of Aug. 24, 1535. The elector expressed himself at greater length to his chancellor, Dr. Brück (Pontanus). Such a mission would appear suspicious when the elector was on the point of having a conference with the King of Hungary and Bohemia. Melanchthon might make concessions that Dr. Martin (Luther) and others could not agree to, and the scandal of division might arise. Besides, he could not believe the French in earnest; they doubtless only intended to take advantage of Melanchthon's indecision. For it was to be presumed that those most active in promoting the affair were "more Erasmian than evangelical (mehr Erasmisch denn Evangelisch)." Bretschneider, ii. 909, etc.

[375] See the three letters, and other interesting correspondence, Bretschneider, ii. 913, etc. However it may have been with M., Luther's regret at the elector's refusal was of brief duration. As early as Sept. 1st he wrote characteristically to Justus Jonas: "Respecting the French envoys, so general a rumor is now in circulation, originating with most worthy men, that I have ceased to wish that Philip should go with them. It is suspected that the true envoys were murdered on the way, and others sent in their place(!) with letters by the papists, to entice Philip out. You know that the Bishops of Maintz, Lüttich, and others, are the worst tools of the Devil; wherefore I am rather anxious for Philip. I have therefore written carefully to him. The World is the Devil, and the Devil is the World." Luther's Works (Ed. Walch), xxi. 1426.

[376] That is, including the apocryphal books.

[377] "Qui est, Sire," they observe with evident amazement at the bare suggestion, "demander de nous retirer à eux, plus qu'eux se convertir à l'Église." The articles having been submitted through Du Bellay, August 7, 1535, the Faculty's answer was returned on the 30th of the same month, accompanied by a more elaborate Instructio, the former in French, the latter in Latin. Both are printed among the Monumenta of Gerdes, 75-78, and 78-86.

[378] Florimond de Ræmond (l. vii. c. 4), and others writers copying from him, represent Tournon as purposely putting himself in the king's way with an open volume of St. Irenæus in his hands. Obtaining in this way his coveted opportunity of portraying the perils arising from intercourse with heretics, the prelate enforced his precepts by reading a pretended story related by St. Polycarp, that the Apostle John had on one occasion hastily left the public bath on perceiving the heretic Cerinthus within. Soldan (Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 163) sensibly remarks that little account ought to be made of the statements of a writer who associates Louise de Savoie—in her later days a notorious enemy of the Reformation, who had at this time been four years dead—- with her daughter Margaret, in "importuning" the king to invite Melanchthon.

[379] Some years earlier, Du Bellay had, while on an embassy, set forth his royal master's pretended convictions in favor of the Reformation with so much verisimilitude as to alarm the papal nuncio, who dreaded the effect of his speeches upon the Protestants. "Non è piccola murmoration quì en Corte, ch'l Orator Francese facea più che l'officio suo richiede in animar Lutherani." Aleander to Sanga, Ratisbon, July 2, 1532, Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 141.

[380] Sleidan, De statu rel. et reipubl., lib. ix., ad annum 1535. The Jesuit Maimbourg rejects the secret conference of Du Bellay as apocryphal, in view of Francis's persecution of the Protestants at Paris, and his declaration of January 21st. But Sleidan's statement is fully substantiated by an extant memorandum by Spalatin, who was present on the occasion (printed in Seckendorff, Gerdes, iv. 68-73 Doc., and Bretschneider, ii. 1014). It receives additional confirmation from a letter of the Nuncio Morone to Pope Paul III., Vienna, Dec. 26, 1536 (Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 178). Morone received from Doctor Matthias, Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, an account of Francis's recent offer to the German Protestants "di condescendere nelle loro opinioni," on condition of their renouncing obedience to the emperor. He reserved only two points of doctrine as requiring discussion: the sacrifice of the mass, and the authority and primacy of the Pope. The Protestants rejected the interested proposal of the royal convert.

[381] The authorship of this interesting document, and the way it reached its destination, are equally unknown. It is published—for the first time, I believe—in Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Opera Calvini (1872), x. part ii. 55, 56.

[382] Senatus Argentoratensis Francisco Regi, July 3, 1536, ibid., x. 57-61.

[383] Senatus Turicensis Francisco Regi, July 13, 1536, ibid., x. 61.

[384] Edict of Lyons, May 31, 1536, Herminjard, iv. 192.

[385] François I^er aux Conseils de Zurich, Berne, Bâle et Strasbourg, Compiègne, Feb. 20, and Feb. 23, 1537, Basle MSS., ibid., iv. 191-193. Cf. the documents, mostly inedited, iv. 70, 96, 150.

[386] Le Conseil de Berne au Conseil de Bâle, March 15, 1537, ibid., iv. 202, 203, Sleidan (Strasb. ed. of 1555), lib x. fol. 163 verso. It must, however, be remarked that the "evangelical cities" would not take the rebuff as decisive, and, within a few months, were again writing to Francis in behalf of his persecuted subjects of Nismes and elsewhere. Le Conseil de Berne à François I^er, Nov. 17, 1537, Berne MSS., Herminjard, iv. 320.

[387] The Protestants might be pardoned, under the circumstances, if their language was somewhat bitter respecting both emperor and king. "Combien que j'espère que nostre Antioche (Charles V.), qui nous presse maintenant, sera serré de si près, qu'il ne luy souviendra des gouttes de ses mains, ne de ses pieds; car il en aura par tout le corps. De son compagnon Sardanapalus (Francis I.), Dieu luy garde la pareille. Car ils sont bien dignes de passer tous deux par une mesme mesure." Calvin to M. de Falaise, Feb. 25, 1547, Lettres françaises, i. 191.—The expression "Sardanapalus inter scorta" occurs in a letter of Calvin to Farel, Feb. 20, 1546 (Bonnet, Letters of John Calvin, ii., 35, 36). It will, therefore, be seen from the date that Merle d'Aubignê is mistaken in referring the description to Henry II. Hist. de la Réf., liv. xii. c. 1.

[388] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 14.

[389] Mémoires de Martin du Bellay (Edition Petitot), xviii. 271-273. See also Mignet, Établissement de la réforme religieuse à Genève, Mém. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.

[390] In dedicating to Wolmar his commentary on II. Corinthians, Calvin deplored the loss sustained in the interruption of his Greek studies under his old teacher, "manum enim, quæ tua est humanitas, porrigere non recusasses ad totum stadii decursum, nisi me, ab ipsis prope carceribus, mors patris revocasset." Upon the basis of the words here italicized, Merle d'Aubigné builds up a story of outcries and intrigues of priests (against Calvin) who "did all in their power to get him put into prison"! Ref. in Time of Calvin, ii. 28. M. Herminjard observes hereupon that one need not be very thoroughly versed in Latin or in Roman antiquities to understand Calvin's allusion; and every classical scholar will sympathize with M. Herminjard when he expresses, in view of the historian's blunder, "un étonnement proportionné à la célébrité de l'auteur." Corresp. des réformateurs, ii. 333.

[391] See the very sensible remarks of Herminjard, ubi supra, iii. 202.

[392] A. Crottet, Histoire des églises réf. de Pons, Gémozac, et Mortagne en Saintonge (Bordeaux, 1841), 10-11, and Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. of the Ref. in the Time of Calvin (Am. ed.), iii. 53, tell the story without any misgivings, and the latter with characteristic embellishment. But it rests on the unsupported and slender authority of Florimond de Ræmond, lib. vii. c. 14, from whose account I cannot even find that the scene was laid in the caverns.

[393] Stähelin (Johannes Calvin, Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, i. 33) well remarks that what makes this address very suspicious is the circumstance that a quite similar passage occurs in Calvin's letter to Sadolet, leading us to the conclusion that we have here only a "reminiscence" of this much later document.

[394] He resigned his chapel of La Gésine and his curacy of Pont l'Evêque, May 4, 1534. Herminjard, iii. 201.

[395] This, and not the persecution at that time raging in France, is the reason assigned by Calvin himself in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, where he tells us that, the very year of his conversion, seeing "que tous ceux qui avoyent quelque désir de la pure doctrine se rangeoyent à lui pour apprendre," he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawing from men. "Et de faict," he adds, "je veins en Allemagne, de propos délibéré, afin que là je peusse vivre à requoy en quelque coin incognu." Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 242, 243. See the same in the Latin ed., Calvini opera (Amsterdam, 1667), iii. c. 2. This preface is dated Geneva, July 23, 1557.

[396] Whether before or after the appearance of the "Placards," is uncertain. On Calvin's early life, see Beza's Life, already referred to; the Histoire ecclésiastique; various letters in J. Bonnet's Letters of Calvin, and Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs; Haag, France protestante; the reformer's life by Paul Henry, D.D., and especially the scholarly work of Dr. E. Stähelin (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1860-1863).

[397] The mooted question whether Calvin wrote the Institutes originally in Latin or in French—in other words, whether there was a French edition before the first Latin edition of 1536—has been set at rest by M. Jules Bonnet, who, in a contribution to the Bulletin de l'histoire du protestantisme français, vi. (1858) 137-142, establishes the priority of the Latin. The chief points in the proof are: 1st, the absence of even a single copy of the supposed French edition of 1535; 2d, Calvin's statement to Francis Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, "I am kept continually occupied upon the French version of my little book;" 3d, his decisive words in the preface to the edition of 1551: "Et premièrement l'ay mis en latin à ce qu'il pust servir à toutes gens d'estude, de quelque nation qu'ils fussent; puis après désirant de communiquer ce qui en pouvoit venir de fruict à nostre nation françoise, l'ay aussy translaté en nostre langue." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Institution de la religion chrétienne (Calv. Opera, t. iii.).

[398] Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.

[399] "La dédicace à François I^er, qui est peut-étre une des plus belles choses que possède notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile (Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Œuvres françaises de Calvin. The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'œuvre de science théologique, de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, "was a force and concision of language never before heard in France.... The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, 339.

[400] Yet it is more probable, as Stähelin suggests (Joh. Calvin, ii. 93), that the classical associations of Italy drew him to the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct invitation from Renée to visit her.

[401] Showing, according to Brantôme, "en son visage et en sa parole qu'elle estoit bien fille du Roy et de France." Dames illustres, Renée de France.

[402] See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the epithalamium of Clément Marot, in Cronique du Roy François I^er (G. Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.

[403] Dames illustres, ubi supra.

[404] "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres François de ma maison; et lesquels si Dieu m'eust donné barbe au menton et que je fusse homme, seroient maintenant tous mes sujets. Voire me seroient-ils tels, si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de rigueur." Ibid., ubi supra. A readable account of the life of this remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less accessible collections in Great Britain.

[405] Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, épisode de la Renaissance et de la Réforme en Italie. Stähelin has well traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renée and the important family of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to Renée are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate loyalty. Lettres françaises, i. 428, etc.

[406] Stähelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visière, Vaudan, Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of its Swiss neighbors, by constituting itself a canton, free of the Duke of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his principal adherents escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory processions were instituted at Aosta, in token of gratitude for deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent noblemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition still points out the "farm-house of Calvin," his "bridge," and the window by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See the interesting Aostan documents contributed by M. Bonnet to the Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. français, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.

[407] This is Calvin's distinct statement: "quum rectum iter Argentoratum tendenti bella clausissent, hac (Geneva) celeriter transire statueram, ut non longior quam unius noctis moræ in urbe mihi foret." Calvin, Preface to Psalms.

[408] "Unus homo, qui nunc turpi defectione iterum ad Papistas rediit, statim fecit ut innotescerem." Ibid., ubi supra. Consequently Beza, in his Latin Life of Calvin, is mistaken when he asserts: "eos [sc. Farel and Viret] igitur quum, ut inter bonos fieri solet, Calvinus transiens invisisset," etc.; for it was Farel that sought him out, on Du Tillet's information.

[409] Calvin, in the preface to the Psalms already quoted, says: "Genevæ non tam consilio, vel hortatu, quam formidabili Gulielmi Farelli obtestatione retentus sum, ac si Deus violentam mihi e cœlo manum injiceret. Et quum privatis et occultis studiis me intelligeret esse deditum, ubi se vidit rogando nihil proficere, usque ad maledictionem descendit, ut Deus otio meo malediceret, si me a ferendis subsidiis in tanta necessitate subducerem. Quo terrore perculsus susceptum iter ita omisi," etc.—Beza throws these words into Farel's mouth: "At ego tibi, inquit, studia tua praetextenti denuntio Omnipotentis Dei nomine, futurum ut nisi in opus istud Domini nobiscum incumbas, tibi non tam Christum quam teipsum quærenti Dominus maledicat." Vita Calvini (Op. Calv., Amst. 1661, tom. i).

[410] This interesting letter, dated Neufchâtel, June 6, 1564, was communicated by M. Herminjard to the editor of the fine edition of Farel's Du Vray Usage de la Croix, printed by J. G. Fick, Geneva, 1865, who gives it entire, pp. 314, etc.

[411] "Sane non possum de aliis aliud sentire quam quod de me statuo." Farel to Calvin, Sept. 8, 1553, Calv. Opera, ix. (Epistolæ), 71.

[412] Declaration pour maintenir la vraye foy que tiennent tous chrestiens de la Trinité des personnes en un seul Dieu. Par Jean Calvin. Contre les erreurs detestables de Michel Servet Espaignol. Où il est aussi monstré, qu'il est licite de punir les heretiques: et qu'à bon droict ce meschant a esté executé par justice en la ville de Genève. 1554.—In this famous little book the author classifies doctrinal errors according to their gravity. Slight superstitions and the ignorance into which simple folk have fallen, are to be borne with till God reveal the truth to them. Offences of greater magnitude, because injurious to the church, should be visited with mild penalties. "But when malicious spirits attempt to overthrow the foundations of religion, utter execrable blasphemies against God, and disseminate damnable speeches, like deadly poison, to drag souls to perdition—in short, engage in schemes to cause the people to revolt from the pure doctrine of God—then it is necessary to have recourse to the extreme remedy, so that the evil may not spread farther" (pp. 48, 49).

[413] See Calvin to C. and T. Zollicoffre, March 28, and the same to Peloquin and De Marsac, Aug. 22, 1553. Servetus was burned Oct. 27.

[414] Two months before the execution Calvin wrote to Farel, Aug. 20, 1553: "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium pœnæ vero atrocitatem remitti cupio;" and on the 26th of October, he again wrote, "Genus mortis conati sumus mutare, sed frustra. Cur non profecerimus, coram narrandum differo." Calv. Opera, ix. 70, 71. As it is thus in evidence not only that Calvin did not burn Servetus, but desired him not to be burned, and made an ineffectual attempt to rescue him from the flames, we might anticipate for the stale calumny a speedy end, were not the tenacity of life characterizing such inventions so notorious as to have passed into a proverb.

[415] Melanchthon, for example, after expressing his entire satisfaction with Calvin's treatise, and his conviction that the church both now and hereafter owes and will owe him gratitude for it, adds: "Affirmo etiam, vestros magistratus juste fecisse, quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata, interfecerunt." Mel. to Calvin, Oct. 14, 1554, Opera (Bretschneider), viii. 362.

[416] Laborie, one of the heroic "five," sending from prison an account of his examination, states that, when one of his judges asked him whether he did not know that God had by Moses sanctioned the punishment of heretics, he freely admitted it: "Hæreticos certe puniendos facile concessi, et in exemplum proposui impurum illum canem Servetum, qui Genevæ ultimo supplicio affectus fuit: verum sedulo caverent, ne in Christianos et Dei filios velut hæreticos animadvertant," etc. Letter in Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Genevæ, 1560), fol. 291.

[417] "Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo esse fateor." Preface to the Psalms.

[418] "Porro, an propositum esset mihi famam aucupari, patuit ex brevi discessu, præsertim quum nemo illic sciverit me authorem esse." Ibid.

[419] "Me tamen non tanta sustinnit magnanimitas, quin turbulenta ejectione plus quam deceret lætatus sim." Ibid.

[420] "Præstantissimus Christi minister, M. Bucerus me iterum simili qua usus fuerat Farellus, obsecratione, ad novam stationem retraxit. Jonæ itaque exemplo, quod proposuerat, territus," etc. Ibid.

[421] "La difficulté est," he writes to M. de Falaise, April, 1546, "des fascheries et rompemens de teste qui interviennent, pour interrompre vingt fois une lettre, ou encore d'advantaige." He adds (and the details are interesting) that, although his general health is good, "je suis tormenté sans cesse d'une doleur qui ne me souffre quasi rien faire. Car oultre les sermons et lectures, il y a desjà un mois que je n'ay guères faict, tellement que j'ay presque honte de vivre arnsi inutile." Lettres françaises, i. 141, 142. Many a scholar of his day, or of ours, would consider a week of health well occupied with the preparation and delivery of two sermons and three theological lectures.

[422] "Ginevra ... che è la minera di questa sorte di metallo." Relazione di M. Suriano, 1561. Relations des Amb. Vénitiens, i. 528.

[423] This period of his life was referred to by him in his last address to the body of his colleagues: "J'ay vescu içy en combats merveilleux; j'ay esté salué par mocquerie le soir devant ma porte de 50 ou 60 coups d'arquebute. Que pensez-vous que cela pouvoit estonner un pauvre escholier, timide comme je suis, et comme je l'ay toujours esté, je le confesse?... On m'a mis les chiens à ma queue, criant hère, hère, et m'ont prins par la robbe et par les jambes." Adieux de Calvin, apud Bonnet, Lettres françaises, ii. 575.

[424] "This sacrifice," M. Gaberel forcibly observes, "has scarcely a parallel in history. Men willingly consent to make the greatest efforts, to perform the most painful acts of self-denial, with the aim of saving their country. Formerly the Genevese suffered unto death to preserve their independence. Now the same unselfish spirit is demanded of them in ordinary times that they exhibited in evil days. And, if the people accepts the 'Ordinances,' it is because it has narrowly scanned the slavery to which that moral license was leading it, which Rome authorizes in order to confiscate all other liberties. It accepts the 'Ordinances' because it has just escaped the treacherous machinations, the servitude prepared for it by men whose principle is to go just as their own heart leads them.... Strengthened by this vote, Calvin can henceforth hope to succeed in his project, and make of Geneva the Protestant metropolis, bearing as its motto, 'Holiness to the Lord.'" Histoire de l'église de Genève, i. 346, 347.

[425] Recherches de la France (ed. of 1621), p. 769. Giovanni Michiel, in 1561, told the Doge of Venice: "Nè potria vostra Serenità creder l'intelligenza e le pratiche grandi che ha nel regno il principal ministro di Genevra che chiamano il Calvino, Francese e Picardo di nazione, uomo di estraordinaria autorità, per la vita, per la dottrina, e per i scritti appresso tutti quelli di questa sette." Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 415.

[426] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 13-17; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 65, etc.

[427] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 15.

[428] "En manèire que pensions nostredit royaume en estre purgé du tout et nettoyé," Francis is made to say in the Edict of Fontainebleau. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois françaises, xii. 677, etc.

[429] "Tellement qu'il est fort à douter que les nouveaux erreurs soient pires que les premiers." Ibid., xii. 677.

[430] "Plusieurs gros personnages, qui secrettement les recèlent, supportent et favorisent en leurs fausses doctrines, leur aydans et subvenans de leurs biens, de lieux, et de places secrettes et occultes, èsquelles ils retirent leurs sectateurs, pour les instruire èsdites erreurs et infections." Ibid., xii. 677.

[431] "Attendu que tels erreurs et fausses doctrines contiennent en soy crime de lèze majesté divine et humaine, sédition du peuple, et perturbation de nostre estat et repos public." Ibid., xii. 680.

[432] "Mais tantost et incontinent qu'ils en seront advertis, les révéler à justice, et de tout leur pouvoir aider à les extirper, comme un chacun doit courir à esteindre le feu public." Ibid., xii. 680.

[433] President Louis Caillaud to the chancellor (Antoine Du Bourg), Oct. 22, 1538. Musée des archives nationales; Documents orig. exposés dans l'Hotel Soubise (Paris, 1872), 347.

[434] Among others, two "Lutherans," otherwise unknown to us, whose execution a young German student, Eustathius de Knobelsdorf, witnessed on the Place Maubert, and described in a letter to George Cassander, professor at Bruges, like himself a Roman Catholic. One of the "Lutherans," a beardless youth of scarcely twenty years, the son of a shoemaker, after having his tongue cut out and his head smeared with sulphur, far from showing marks of terror, signified, by a motion to the executioner, his perfect willingness to meet death. "I doubt, my dear Cassander," writes De Knobelsdorf, "whether those celebrated philosophers, who have written so many books on the contempt of death, would have endured so cruel tortures with such constancy. So far did this youth seem to be raised above what is of man." Letter of July 10, 1542. Translated in Bulletin, vi. (1858), 420-423; and Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 52-55.

[435] "En sorte que la justice, punition, correction, et démonstration en soit faite telle et si griefve, que ce puisse estre perpétuel exemple à tous autres."

[436] Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois françaises, xii. 785-787.

[437] "Lui a dit qu'il voulait qu'aucun sacramentaire ne fût admis à abjurer, ains fût puni de mort." Reg. secr. du Parl. de Bordeaux, July 7, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, i. 47, 48.

[438] "Conspirateurs occultes contre la prospérité de nostre estat, dépendant principalement et en bonne partie de la conservation de l'intégrité de la foy catholique en nostredit royaume, rebelles et désobéyssans a nous et à nostre justice." Recueil des anc. lois françaises, xii. 819.

[439] Ibid., xii. 820.

[440] The preamble of the royal letters giving execution to the Twenty-five Articles of the Sorbonne mentions as a moving cause "plusieurs scandales et schismes par cy devant intervenus, et mesmement en cest advent de Noel dernier passé, par le moyen et à l'occasion de contentions, contradictions et altercations de certain prédicateurs preschans et publians divers et contraires doctrines." Recueil des anc. lois françaises, xii. 820.

[441] Recueil des anc. lois franç., xii. 821-825. Among other recommendations appended to the articles, was the following somewhat interesting one, designed to correct the irreverence of the age: "Quand il vient à propos d'alleguer le nom des saincts apostres et évangelistes ou saincts docteurs, qu'ils n'ayent à les nommer par leurs norm simplement, sans aucune préface d'honneur, comme ont accoustumé dire, 'Paul,' 'Jacques,' 'Mathieu,' 'Pierre,' 'Hiérosme,' 'Augustin,' etc. Et ne leur doit estre grief adjouster et préposer le nom de 'sainct,' en disant, 'sainct Pierre,' 'sainct Paul,' etc.!"

[442] Ibid., xii. 820. In answer to these Articles, Calvin wrote his "Antidote aux articles de la faculté Sorbonique de Paris."

[443] Ory, Oriz, or Oritz, as his name was indifferently written, was a prominent character in subsequent scenes of blood, and was, as we may hereafter see, the agent employed by Henry II. to cajole, or frighten his aunt, Renée, and bring her back into the bosom of the Roman Church. The letters-patent giving this personage, who is styled "doctor of theology and prior of the preaching friars (Dominicans) of Paris," authority to exercise the functions of inquisitor of the faith throughout the kingdom, in place of Valentin Lievin, deceased, are of May 30, 1536, Recueil des anc. lois fr., xii. 503. Similar letters were issued April 10, 1540. His confirmation by Henry II., June 22, 1550, ibid., xiii. 173.

[444] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 13. It is, in fact, an interesting circumstance that Rocheli, or Rochetti, the deputy inquisitor referred to in the text, not long after became a convert to Protestantism, and applied himself to preaching the doctrines he had once labored to overturn.

[445] The first, entitled "Epistolæ duæ; prima de fugiendis impiorum illicitis sacris et puritate Christianæ religionis; secunda de Christiani hominis officio in sacerdotiis papalis ecclesiæ vel administrandis vel abjiciendis," 1537. The second, "Contre la secte fantastique et furieuse des Libertins qui se disent spirituels," 1544. The latter, from its pointed reference to Quintin and Pocquet, two notorious leaders, seems to have given offence to Margaret of Navarre, by whom they had been harbored in ignorance of their true character. A letter written to the queen by Calvin immediately upon learning this, April 28, 1545 (Bonnet, Lettres françaises, i. 111-117), is at once one of the best examples of his nervous French style, and a fine illustration of manly courage tempered with respect for a princess who had deserved well of Protestantism. A single sentence admirably portrays his attitude toward the formidable sect which had so devastated the Low Countries and had now entered France in the persons of two of its worst apostles—a sect regarded by him as more pernicious and execrable than any previously existing: "Un chien abaye, s'il voit qu'on assaille son maistre; je seroys bien lasche, si en voyant la vérité de Dieu ainsi assaillie, je faisoys du muet sans sonner mot."

[446] "A exhorté et prié la cour de vouloir faire punir et brûler les vrais hérétiques," etc. Reg. du Parl., May 24, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parlement de Bordeaux, i. 63.

[447] "Réclame son privilége de fille de France écrit dans un livre qui est à Saint Denis, de faire ouvrir les prisons," etc. Ibid., ubi supra.

[448] The text of this singular document, dated Rheims, Sept. 8, 1543, is in Gerdes., Hist. Reform., iv. (Monumenta) 107-109. When the "Instructions" fell into the hands of Charles V., he naturally tried to make capital of a paper so little calculated to please Roman Catholics, emanating from a son of the "Most Christian king." And Francis thought himself compelled to clear himself from the charge of lukewarmness in the faith, if not of actual heretical bias, by exercising fresh severities upon the devoted Protestants of his own dominions.

[449] This was true particularly of the wealthy noble family to whom belonged the fief of Cental, perhaps at a somewhat later date. Among the Waldensian villages owned by it were those of La Motte d'Aigues, St. Martin, Lourmarin, Peypin, and others in the same vicinity. Bouche, Histoire de Provence, i. 610.

[450] Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fols. 88, 90, 100.

[451] Ibid., ubi supra, fol. 100; Garnier, Histoire de France, xxvi. 27.

[452] Leber, Collection de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, xvii. 550.

[453] The Comtât Venaissin was not reincorporated in the French monarchy until 1663. Louis XIV., in revenge for the insult offered him when, on the twentieth of August of the preceding year, his ambassador to the Holy See was shot at by the pontifical troops, and some of his suite killed and wounded, ordered the Parliament of Aix to re-examine the title by which the Pope held Avignon and the Comtât. The parliament cited the pontiff, and, when he failed to appear, loyally declared his title unsound, and, under the lead of their first president (another Meynier, Baron d'Oppède), proceeded at once to execute sentence by force of arms, and oust the surprised vice-legate. No resistance was attempted. Meynier was the first to render homage to the king for his barony; and the people of Avignon, according to the admission of the devout historian of Provence, celebrated their independence of the Pope and reunion to France by Te Deums and a thousand cries of joy and thanksgiving to Almighty God. Bouche, Histoire de Provence, ii. (Add.) 1068-1071.

[454] "Ministri, quos Barbas eorum idiomate id est, avunculos, vocabant." Crespin, fol. 88.

[455] The Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 22, while admitting that the Vaudois "had never adhered to papal superstition," asserts that "par longue succession de temps, la pureté de la doctrine s'estoit grandement abastardie." From the letter of Morel and Masson to Œcolampadius, it appears that, in consequence of their subject condition, they had formed no church organization. Their Barbes, who were carefully selected and ordained only after long probation, could not marry. They were sent out two by two, the younger owing implicit obedience to the elder. Every part of the extensive territory over which their communities were scattered was visited at least once a year. Pastors, unless aged, remained no longer than three years in one place. While supported in part by the laity, they were compelled to engage in manual labor to such an extent as to interfere much with their spiritual office and preclude the study that was desirable. The most objectionable feature in their practice was that they did not themselves administer the Lord's Supper, but, while recommending to their flock to discard the superstitions environing the mass, enjoined upon them the reception of the eucharist at the hands of those whom they themselves regarded as the "members of Antichrist." Œcolampadius, while approving their confession of faith and the chief points of their polity, strenuously exhorted them to renounce all hypocritical conformity with the Roman Church, induced by fear of persecution, and strongly urged them to put an end to the celibacy and itinerancy of their clergy, and to discontinue the "sisterhoods" that had arisen among them. The important letters of the Waldensee delegates and of Œcolampadius are printed in Gerdes., Hist. Evang. Renov., ii. 402-418. An interesting account of the mission is given by Hagenbach, Johann Oekolampad und Oswald Myconius, 150, 151.

[456] Crespin, fol. 89; Hist. ecclés., i. 22; Herminjard, iii. 66.

[457] Printed at Neufchâtel, by the famous Pierre de Wringle, dit Pirot Picard; completed, according to the colophon, June 4, 1535. The Waldenses having determined upon its publication at the Synod of Angrogna, in 1532, collected the sum, enormous for them, of 500 (others say 1,500) gold crowns. Adam (Antoine Saunier) to Farel, Nov. 5, 1532, Herminjard, ii. 452. Monastier, Hist. de l'église vaudoise, i. 212. The part taken by the Waldenses in this publication is attested beyond dispute by ten lines of rather indifferent poetry, in the form of an address to the reader, at the close of the volume:

"Lecteur entendz, si Vérité addresse,
Viens done ouyr instamment sa promesse
Et vif parler: lequel en excellence
Veult asseurer nostre grelle espérance.
L'esprit Jésus qui visite et ordonne.
Noz tendres meurs, icy sans cry estonne
Tout hault raillart escumant son ordure.
Remercions eternelle nature,
Prenons vouloir bienfaire librement,
Jésus querons veoir eternellement."

Taking the first letter of each successive word, we obtain the lines:

"Les Vaudois, peuple évangélique
Ont mis ce thrésor en publique."

See L. Vulliemin, Le Chroniqueur, Recueil historique (Lausanne, 1836), 103, etc. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. français, i. 82.

[458] "D'un commun accord," says an able critic, "on a mis Calvin à la tête de tous nos écrivains en prose; personne n'a songé à méconnaître les obligations que lui a notre langue. D'où vient qu'on a été moins juste envers Robert Olivetan, tandis qu'à y regarder de près, il y a tout lieu de croire que sa part a été au moins égale à celle de Calvin dans la réformation de la langue? L'Institution de Calvin a eu un très-grand nombre de lecteurs; mais il n'est pas probable qu'elle ait été lue et relue comme la Bible d'Olivetan." Le Semeur, iv. (1835), 167. By successive revisions this Bible became that of Martin, of Osterwald, etc.

[459] Sleidan (Fr. trans. of Courrayer), ii. 251, who remarks of this charge of rebellion, "C'est l'accusation qu'on intente maintenant le plus communément, et qui a quelque chose de plus odieux que véritable."

[460] Professor Jean Montaigne, writing from Avignon, as early as May 6, 1533, said: "Valdenses, qui Lutheri sectam jamdiu sequuntur istic male tractantur. Plures jam vivi combusti fuerunt, et quotidie capiuntur aliqui; sunt enim, ut fertur, illius sectæ plus quam sex millia hominum. Impingitur eis quod non credant purgatorium esse, quod non orent Sanctos, imo dicant non esse orandos, teneant decimas non esse solvendas presbyteris, et alia quædam id genus. Propter quæ sola vivos comburunt, bona publicant." Basle MS., Herminjard, iii. 45.

[461] Crespin and the Hist. ecclés. place De Roma's exploits before, De Thou relates them after the massacre. As to the surpassing and shameless immorality of the ecclesiastics of Avignon, it is quite sufficient to refer to Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 97, etc., and to the autobiography of François Lambert, who is a good witness, as he had himself been an inmate of a monastery in that city.

[462] Crespin, fol. 103, b.

[463] The Parliament of Provence, with its seat at Aix, was instituted in 1501, and was consequently posterior in date and inferior in dignity to the parliaments of Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, and Rouen.

[464] By royal letters of July 16, 1535, and May 31, 1536. Histoire ecclés., i. 23.

[465] There is even greater discrepancy than usual between the different authorities respecting the number of Waldenses cited and subsequently condemned to the stake. Crespin, fol. 90, gives the names of ten, the royal letters of 1549 state the number as fourteen or fifteen, the Histoire ecclésiastique as fifteen or sixteen. M. Nicolaï (Leber, Coll. de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, viii. 552) raises it to nineteen, which seems to be correct.

[466] Histoire ecclés., i. 23; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 90; De Thou, i. 536; Nicolaï, ubi supra; Recueil des anc. lois françaises, xii. 698. See the arrêt in Bouche, Hist. de Provence, ubi supra. The last-mentioned author, while admitting the proceedings of the Parliament of Aix to be apparently "somewhat too violent," excuses them on the ground that the Waldenses deserved this punishment, "non tant par leurs insolences et impiétez cy-devant commises, mais pour leur obstination à ne vouloir changer de religion;" and cites, in exculpation of the parliament, the "bloody order of Gastaldo," in consequence of which, in 1655, fire, sword, and rapine were carried into the peaceful valley of Luserna (ibid., 615, 623)! The massacre of the unhappy Italian Waldenses thus becomes a capital vindication of the barbarities inflicted a century before upon their French brethren.

[467] See the remark of M. Nicolaï (Leber, Coll. de pièces rel. à l'hist. de France, viii. 556).

[468] Crespin (fols. 91-94) gives an interesting report of some discussions of the kind. It may be remarked that the Archbishop of Aix, who was the prime mover in the persecution, had exposed himself to unusual censure on the score of irregularity of life.

[469] The remark is ascribed to Chassanée: "itaque decretum ipsi tale fecissent, eo consilio factum potius, ut Lutheranis, quorum multitudinem augeri quotidie intelligebant, metus incuteretur, quam ut revera id efficeretur quod ipsius decreti capitibus continebatur." Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 98.

[470] Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 100.

[471] The ludicrous story of the "mice of Autun," which thus obtains a historic importance, had been told by Chassanée himself. It appears that on a certain occasion the diocese of Autun was visited with the plague of an excessive multiplication of mice. Ordinary means of stopping their ravages having failed, the vicar of the bishop was requested to excommunicate them. But the ecclesiastical decree was supposed to be most effective when the regular forms of a judicial trial were duly observed. An advocate for the marauders was therefore appointed—no other than Chassanée himself; who, espousing with professional ardor the interests of his quadrupedal clients, began by insisting that a summons should be served in each parish; next, excused the non-appearance of the defendants by alleging the dangers of the journey by reason of the lying-in-wait of their enemies, the cats; and finally, appealing to the compassion of the court in behalf of a race doomed to wholesale destruction, acquitted himself so successfully of his fantastic commission, that the mice escaped the censures of the church, and their advocate gained universal applause! See Crespin, fol. 99; De Thou, i. 536, Gamier, xxvi. 29, etc. Crespin, writing at least as early as 1560, speaks of the incident as being related in Chassanée's Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi; but I have been unable to find any reference to it in that singular medley.

[472] De Thou, i. 539.

[473] This striking incident is not noticed in the well-known Memoirs of Du Bellay, written by his brother. The reader will agree with me in considering it one of the most creditable in Du Bellay's eventful life. Calvin relates it in two letters to Farel, published by Bonnet (Calvin's Letters, i. 162, 163-165). The reformer had had it from Du Bellay's own lips at Strasbourg, and had perused the letter in which the latter threw up his alliance with Montmian, and stigmatized the baseness of his conduct.

[474] De Thou, i. 539; Crespin, ubi supra, fols. 100, 101.—Historians have noticed the remarkable points of similarity this report presents to that made by the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan regarding the primitive Christians. Plinii Epistolæ, x. 96, etc.

[475] Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), i. 228, 229. Strange to say, even M. Nicolaï, otherwise very fair, credits one of these absurd rumors (Leber, ubi supra, xvii. 557). While the inhabitants of Mérindol entered into negotiations, it is stated that those of Cabrières, subjects of the Pope, took up arms. Twice they repulsed the vice-legate's forces, driving them back to the walls of Avignon and Cavaillon. Flushed with success, they began to preach openly, to overturn altars, and to plunder churches. The Pope, therefore, Dec., 1543, called on Count De Grignan for assistance in exterminating the rebels. But the incidents here told conflict with the undeniable facts of Cardinal Sadolet's intercession for, and peaceable relations with the inhabitants of Cabrières in 1541 and 1542; as well as with the royal letters of March 17, 1549 (1550 New Style), and the report of Du Bellay. Bouche, on the weak authority of Meynier, De la guerre civile, gives similar statements of excesses, ii. 611, 612.

[476] Hist. ecclés., i. 24; Crespin, fol. 101; De Thou, i. 539; Bouche, ii. 612. The last asserts that this unconditional pardon was renewed by successive royal letters, dated March 17, 1543, and June 14, 1544; but that in those of Lyons, 1542, the king had meanwhile, at Cardinal Tournon's instigation, exhorted the Archbishop and Parliament of Aix to renewed activity in proceeding against the heretics. Ibid, ii. 612-614.

[477] Given in full by Crespin, ubi supra, fols. 104-110, and by Gerdes., Hist. Reform., iv. 87-99; in its brief form, as originally composed in French to be laid before the Parliament of Provence, in Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. français, viii. 508, 509. Several articles were added when it was laid before Sadolet. Crespin, fol. 110.

[478] De Thou, i. 540; Crespin, fol. 110.

[479] Crespin, fols. 110, 111.

[480] Ibid., fol. 110.

[481] May 23, 1541. Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., iv. 325-328; Gerdes., iv. (Doc). 100,101. But when the Germans intervened later in behalf of the few remnants of the dispersed Waldenses, they received a decided rebuff: "Il leur répondit assez brusquement, qu'il ne se mêloit pas de leurs affaires, et qu'ils ne devoient pas entrer non plus dans les siennes, ni s'embarrasser de ce qu'il faisoit dans ses États, et de quelle manière il jugeoit à propos de châtier ses sujets coupables." De Thou, i. 541.

[482] Hist. ecclés., i. 27, 28; Crespin, fol. 114.

[483] Vesembec, apud Perrin, History of the Old Waldenses (1712), xii. 59; Garnier, xxvi. 23.

[484] Henry II.'s letters of March 17, 1549, summoning Meynier and his accomplices to the bar of the Parliament of Paris, state distinctly the motives of the perpetrators of the massacre, as alleged by the Waldenses in their appeal to Francis I.: "Auquel ils firent entendre, qu'ils étaient journellement travaillés et molestés par les évêques du pays et par les présidens et conseillers de notre parlement de Provence, qui avaient demandé leurs confiscations et terres pour leurs parens," etc. Hist. ecclés., ubi supra.

[485] "Sur ce que l'on auroit fait entendre audit feu Seigneur Roi, qu'ils étaient en armes en grande assemblée, forçant villes et châteaux, eximant les prisonniers des prisons," etc. Letters Patent of Henry II., ubi supra, i. 46; also, i. 28; De Thou, i. 541. Notwithstanding the evident falsity of these assertions of Courtain, the parliament's messenger, writers of such easy consciences as Maimbourg (Hist. du calvinisme, liv. ii. 83) and Freschot (Origine, progressi e ruina del Calvinismo nella Francia, di D. Casimiro Freschot, Parma, 1693, p. 34) are not ashamed to endorse them. Freschot says: "Nello stesso tempo che mandavano à Parigi le loro proposizioni, travagliavano ad accrescere le loro forze, non che ad assicurare il proprio Stato. Per il che conseguire avendo praticato alcune intelligenze nella città di Marsiglia, s'avanzarono sin' al numero di sedici mila per impossessarsene," etc. The assertions of so ignorant a writer as Freschot shows himself to be, scarcely require refutation. See, however, Le Courrayer, following Bayle, note to Sleidan, ii. 256. The impartial Roman Catholic continuation of the Eccles. Hist. of the Abbé Fleury, xxviii. 540, gives no credit to these calumnies.

[486] The substance of the royal order of January 1, 1545, is given in the Letters-Patent of Henry II., dated Montereau, March 17, 1549 (1550, New Style), which constitute our best authority: "Le feu dit Seigneur permit d'exécuter les arrêts donnés contre eux, révoquant lesdites lettres d'évocation, pour le regard des récidifs non ayant abjuré, et ordonna que tous ceux qui se trouveraient chargés et coupables d'hérésie et secte Vaudoise, fussent exterminés," etc. Hist. ecclés., i. 46.

[487] The names are preserved: they were the second president, François de la Fond; two counsellors, Honoré de Tributiis and Bernard Badet; and an advocate, Guérin, acting in the absence of the "Procureur géneral." Letters-Patent of Henry II., ubi supra; De Thou, i. 541; Hist. ecclés., i. 28.

[488] De Thou, ubi supra; Sleidan, Hist. de la réformation (Fr. trans. of Le Courrayer), ii. 252.

[489] The fleet carrying these troops, consisting of twenty-five galleys, was under the joint command of Poulin, Poulain, or Polin—afterward prominent in military affairs, under the name of Baron de la Garde—and of the Chevalier d'Aulps. Bouche, ii. 601. The Baron de la Garde is made the object of a special notice by Brantôme.

[490] Crespin, fol. 115. Sleidan and De Thou give a similar incident as befalling fugitives from Mérindol. Garnier, alluding to the absence of any attempt at self-defence on the part of the Waldenses, pertinently remarks: "On put connoître alors la fausseté et la noirceur des bruits que l'on avoit affecté de répandre sur leurs préparatifs de guerre: pas un ne songea à se mettre en défense: des cris aigus et lamentables portés dans un moment de villages en villages, avertirent ceux qui vouloient sauver leur vie de fuir promptement du côté des montagnes." Hist. de France, xxvi. 33.

[491] So say the Letters-Patent of Henry II.: "Furent faites défenses à son de trompe tant par autorité dudit Menier, que dudit de la Fond, de non bailler à boire et manger aux Vaudois, sans savoir qui ils étaient; et ce sur peine de la corde." Hist. ecclés., i. 47; Crespin, fol. 115.

[492] Crespin, and Hist. ecclês., ubi supra.

[493] Many, overtaken in their flight, were slain by the sword, or sent to the galleys, and about twenty-five, having taken refuge in a cavern near Mus, were stifled by a fire purposely kindled at its mouth. Sleidan, ii. 255.

[494] Hist. ecclés., i. 29; Crespin, fol. 116; De Thou, ubi supra; Sleidan, ii. 254. The deposition of Antoine d'Alagonia, Sieur de Vaucler, a Roman Catholic who was present and took an active part in the enterprise (Bouche, ii. 616-619), is evidently framed expressly to exculpate D'Oppède and his companions, and conflicts too much with well-established facts to contribute anything to the true history of the capture of Cabrières.

[495] De Thou, i. 543; Sleidan, ii. 255. Of the affair at La Coste, the Letters-Patent of Henry II. say: "Au lieu de La Coste y auroit eu plusieurs hommes tués, femmes et filles forcées jusques au nombre de vingt-cinq dedans une grange." Ubi supra, i. 47.

[496] "Et infinis pillages étaient faits par l'espace de plus de sept semaines." Ibid, ubi supra.

[497] Hist. ecclés., i. 30.

[498] Letters-Patent of Henry II., ubi sup.

[499] At Geneva the fugitives were treated with great kindness. Calvin was deputed by the Council of the Republic, in company with Farel, to raise contributions for them throughout Switzerland. Reg. of Council, May, 1545, apud Gaberel, Hist. de l'église de Genève, i. 439. Nine years later the council granted a lease of some uncultivated lands near Geneva to 700 of these Waldenses. The descendants of the former residents of Mérindol and Cabrières are to be found among the inhabitants of Peney and Jussy. Reg. of Council, May, 10, 1554, Gaberel, i. 440.

[500] Bouche, ii. 620, states, as the results of the investigations of Auberi, advocate for the Waldenses, that about 3,000 men, women and children were killed, 666 sent to the galleys, of whom 200 shortly died, and 900 houses burned in 24 villages of Provence.

[501] Francis I., on complaint of Madame De Cental, whose son had lost an annual revenue of 12,000 florins by the ruin of his villages, had, June 10, 1545, called upon the Parliament of Aix to send full minutes of its proceedings. Bouche, ii. 620, 621.

[502] De Thou, i. 544.

[503] "Et sachant que la plainte en était venue jusqu'à [notre] dit feu père, auraient envoyé ledit De la Fond devers lui, lequel ... aurait obtenu lettres données à Arques, le 18me jour d'août 1545, approuvant paisiblement ladite exécution; n'ayant toutefois fait entendre à notre dit feu père la vérité du fait; mais supposé par icelles lettres que tous les habitane des villes brûlées étaient connus et jugés hérétiques et Vaudois." Letters-Patent of Henry II., ubi supra, i. 47; De Thou, i. 544.

[504] Letters-Patent of Henry II., ubi supra.

[505] De Thou, i. 544; Hist. ecclés., i. 30. It is worthy of notice, however, that the letters of Henry II., from which we have so often drawn, and which would naturally have alluded to this incident, are silent in regard to the supposed change of view on Francis's part.

[506] De Thou, i. 545. Care was even taken to state that Guérin was punished for a different crime—that of forging papers to clear himself from accusations of malfeasance in other official duties than those in which the Waldenses were concerned, and which came to light in consequence of a quarrel between D'Oppède and himself. Garnier, xxvi. 40; Bouche, ii. 622. The leniency with which D'Oppède was treated may be accounted for in part, perhaps, by the fact that the Pope addressed Henry II. a very pressing letter in his behalf, as "persecuted in consequence of his zeal for religion." Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 480.

[507] "Mais, craignant ceux d'entre les juges qui n'étaient pas moins cruels et sanguinaires en leurs cœurs que les criminels qu'ils devaient juger, qu'en les condamnant ils ne vinssent à rompre le cours des jugemens qu'euxmêmes prononçaient tous les jours en pareilles cause, et voulant aussi sauver l'honneur d'un autre parlement," etc. Hist. ecclés., i. 50.

[508] "Mais il fut saisi pen après d'une douleur si excessive dans les intestins, qu'il rendit son âme cruelle au milieu des plus affreux tourmens; Dieu prenant soin lui-même de lui imposer le châtiment auquel ses juges ne l'avoient pas condamné, et qui, pour avoir été un peu tardif, n'en fut que plus rigoureux." De Thou, i. 545. See a more detailed account of his death, and the exhortations of a pious surgeon, Lamotte, of Aries, in Crespin, fol. 117. Other instances in Hist. ecclésiastique.

[509] The story of the martyrdom of the "Fourteen of Meaux" is told in detail by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fols. 117-121, and the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 31-33.

[510] Ps. 79. I quote, with the quaint old spelling, from a Geneva edition of 1638, in my possession, which preserves unchanged the original words and the grand music with which the words were so intimately associated.

[511] The hero of this action was of course arrested. Crespin, fol. 120.

[512] Hist. ecclés., i. 33; Crespin, fol. 121.

[513] Hist. ecclés., i. 33-35.

[514] Ibid., ubi supra.

[515] Hist. ecclés., i. 34. Occasionally, instead of cutting out the tongue of the "Lutheran," a large iron ball was forced into his mouth, an equally effective means of preventing distinct utterance. This was done to two converted monks, degraded and burned in Saintonge, in August, 1546. A. Crottet, Hist. des églises réf. de Pons, Gémozac et Mortagne, 212.

[516] Alluding to the compacts into which Francis had entered, the emperor accuses him of having purposely violated them all: "los quales nunca a guardado, como es notorio, sino por el tiempo que no a podido renobar guerra, ó a querido esperar de hallar oportunidad de dañarme con disimulacion." From Henry he anticipates little better treatment. Instruct. of Charles V. to the Infante Philip, Augsburg, Jan. 18, 1548, Pap. d'état du Card, de Granvelle, iii. 285. It ought to be added, however, that both Francis and his son retorted with similar accusations; and that, in this case at least, all three princes seem to have spoken the exact truth.

[517] The dauphin Francis died at Tournon, Aug. 10, 1536, probably from the effects of imprudently drinking ice-water when heated by a game at ball. None the less was one of his dependants—the Count of Montecuccoli—compelled by torture to avow, or invent the story, that he had poisoned him at the instigation of Charles the Fifth. He paid the penalty of his weakness by being drawn asunder by four horses! How little Francis I. believed the story is seen from the magnificence and cordiality with which, three years later, he entertained the supposed author and abettor of the crime. See an interesting note of M. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Françoys I^er, 184-186. The imperialists replied by attributing the supposed crime, with equal improbability, to Catharine de' Medici, the youthful bride of Henry, who succeeded to his brother's title and expectations. Charles of Angoulême, a prince whose inordinate ambition, if we may believe the memoirs of Vieilleville, led him to exhibit unmistakable tokens of joy at a false report of the drowning of his two elder brothers, died on the 8th of September, 1545, of infection, to which he wantonly exposed himself by entering a house and handling the clothes of the dead, with the presumptuous boast "that never had a son of France been known to die of the plague."

[518] See Brantôme, Hommes illustres (Œuvres, vii. 369, 370).

[519] This was as early as 1538. Mémoires de Vieilleville (Ed. Petitot), liv. v. c. 24, 25.

[520] "The king is a goodly tall gentleman, well made in all the parts of his body, a very grim countenance, yet very gentle, meek, and well beloved of all his people." The Journey of the queen's ambassadors to Rome, anno 1555 (the last to pay reverence to the Pope, under Mary), printed in Hardwick, State Papers, I. 68.

[521] "Non senza pericolo," says Matteo Dandolo, "perchè corrono molte volte alle sbarre con poco vedere, sì che si abbatterono un giorno a correre all' improvviso il padre (Francis) contra il figlio, e diede lui alla buona memoria di quello un tal colpo nella fronte, che gli levò la carne più che se gli avesse dato una gran frignoccola." Relazioni Venete, ii. 171.

[522] Relations Vén. (Ed. Tommaseo), i. 286.

[523] Histoire ecclésiastique, i., 43. The most striking features of the character of Henry are well delineated by the Venetian ambassadors who visited the court of France during the preceding and the present reigns. Even the Protestants who had experienced his severity speak well of his natural gentleness, and deplore the evils into which he fell through want of self-reliance. The discriminating Regnier de la Planche styles him "prince de doux esprit, mais de fort petit sens, et du tout propre à se laisser mener en lesse" (Histoire de l'estat de France, éd. Panthéon litt., 202). Claude de l'Aubespine draws a more flattering portrait, as might be expected from one who served as minister of state in the councils of Francis I. and the three succeeding monarchs: "Ce prince estoit, à la vérité, très-bien nay, tant de corps que de l'esprit.... Il avoit un air si affable et humain que, dès le premier aspect, il emportoit le cœur et la dévotion d'un chacun. Aussi a il esté constamment chery et aimé de tous ses subjets durant sa vie, désiré et regretté après sa mort" (Histoire particulière de la cour du Roy Henry II., Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 277). Tavannes is less complimentary: "Le roy Henry eut les mesmes defauts de son predecesseur, l'esprit plus foible, et se peut dire le règne du connestable, de Mme. de Valentinois et de M. de Guise, non le sien." (Mémoires de Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, ed. Petitot, i. 410.)

[524] Dr. Wotton to the Council, Paris, April 6, 1547, State Paper Office, and printed in Fraser-Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, i. 35, etc.

[525] De l'Aubespine (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 284, 285.

[526] Relaz. Venete, ii. 437, 438.

[527] The legate Santa Croce describes his qualities thus: "Erat Montmorantius animo alacri et prompto, ingenio acri, corpora vivido, somni ac vini parcissimus, negotiis vehementer deditus, etc." He mentions as remarkable the facility with which, in the midst of the most pressing affairs of state or military exigencies, he could give his attention, as grand master of the royal household, to the most minute matters respecting the king's food or dress. De Civilibus Gall. Dissens. Comment. (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Coll., v. 1429).

[528] The devoted "connestabliste" Begnier de la Planche does not conceal the aversion the head of the family which he delights in exalting entertained for letters: "Il avoit opinion," he writes, "que les lettres amolissoyent les gentilshommes et les faisoyent dégénérer de leurs majeurs, et mesmes estoit persuadé que les lettres avoyent engendré les hérésies et accreu les luthériens en telle nombre qu'ils estoyent au royaume; en sorte qu'il avoit en peu d'estime les sçavans, et leurs livres." Histoire de l'estat de la France tant de la république que de la religion sous le règne de François II., p. 309.

[529] The people were as a body declared attainted of treason, their hôtel-de-ville was razed to the ground, their written privileges were seized and reduced to ashes. The bells that had sounded out the tocsin, at the outbreak of the insurrection, were for the most part broken in pieces and melted. One miserable man was hung to the clapper of the same bell that he had rung to call the people to arms. Others for the like crime were broken on the wheel or burned alive. Tristan de Moneins, lieutenant of the King of Navarre, had been basely murdered by the citizens: they were now compelled to disinter his remains, being allowed the use of no implements, but compelled to scrape off the earth with their nails! De Thou, i. 459, etc.

[530] Brantôme, Homines illustres (Œuvres, viii., 129).

[531] Sir John Mason to Council, Poissy, Sept. 14, 1550, State Paper Office.

[532] Claude de l'Aubespine, Histoire particulière de la cour du Roy Henry II. (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 277.

[533] "Onorevolissimo universal carico che tiene." Relazioni Venete, ii. 166. It is somewhat painful to find from a letter of Margaret of Navarre, written after Henry's accession, that this amiable princess was compelled to depend, for the continuance of her paltry pension of 25,000 livres as sister of Francis, upon the kind offices of the constable. Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, t. i., No. 154. The king's affection for Montmorency was so demonstrative that he ordered that, after their death, the constable's heart and his own should be buried together in a single monument, as an indication to posterity of his partiality. Jod. Sincerus (Itinerarium Galliæ, 1627, pp. 281-284) takes the trouble to transcribe not less than three of the epitaphs in the Church of the Celestines, in which Montmorency receives more than his proportion of fulsome praise.

[534] Relazioni Venete, ii. 175, 176.

[535] De Thou, i. 237, 245.

[536] A contemporary writer (apud De Thou, i. 237, note) pretends to cite the monarch's precise words. The current quatrain was the following:

Le feu roy devina ce poinct,
Que ceux de la maison de Guyse,
Mettroyent ses enfans en pourpoint,
Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.

Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous François II., éd. Panthéon lit., p. 261. The lines are given, with a few variations, by almost every history of the times; Recueil des choses mémorables, etc., 1565, p. 31; Mémoires de Condé, i. 533. De Thou is a firm believer in the truth of the vulgar report (ubi supra), and even Davila (Eng. trans. of Sir Charles Cottrell, 1678, p. 7) admits that later events have added much credit to the current belief.

[537] By arrangement with his elder brother Antoine (A. D. 1530), Claude received, as his portion of the paternal estate, four or five considerable seigniories enclosed within the territorial limits of France: Guise on the north, not far from the boundary of the Netherlands; Aumale and Elbeuf in Normandy; Mayenne in Maine, on the borders of Brittany; and Joinville, in Champagne, on the northeastern frontier of the kingdom; besides others of minor importance. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine (Nancy, 1752), v. 481, 482.

[538] De Thou draws no flattering sketch of his course: "Le dernier de ces deux prélats avoit eu beaucoup de part aux bonnes graces de François I^er, sans autre mérite que de s'être rendu utile à ses plaisirs et d'avoir su se distinguer par une libéralité folle et indiscrète, deux moyens par lesquels il avoit été assez heureux pour adoucir la juste indignation de ce prince contre son frère, Claude duc de Guise." Hist. univ., i. 523.

[539] Soldan, Gesch. des Protestantismus in Frankreich, i. 214. A still longer list is given by Dom Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, v. 482.

[540] In 1518. Abbé Migne, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux; table chronologique.

[541] Sir John Mason to Council, Feb. 23, 1551. State Paper Office.

[542] Mémoires de Castlenau, liv. i., c. 1; Migne, ubi supra.

[543] Pasquier, an impartial writer, but somewhat given to panegyric, paints a very flattering portrait of Guise, in a letter written after the death of the duke: "Il fut seigneur fort débonnaire, bien emparlé tant en particulier qu'en public, vaillant et magnanime, prompt à la main," etc. Œuvres choisies, ii. 258.

[544] "Le due de Guyse, grand chef de guerre, et capitaine capable de servir sa patrie, si l'ambition de son frère ne l'eust prévenu et empoisonné. Aussi a-il dict plusieurs fois de luy: Cest homme enfin nous perdra." De l'Aubespine, Hist. part., iii. 286.

[545] "Di dir poche volte il vero. Poco veredico, di natura duplice ed avara, non meno nel suo particolare che nelle cose del rè." Suriano regards the cardinal as without a rival in this particular: "Che di saper dissimulare non ha pari al mondo." Tommaseo, i. 526.

[546] Not to speak of the property he obtained by dispossessing the rightful owners, he received, by favor of Diana, on the death of his uncle, Cardinal John, the benefices the latter had enjoyed, with all his personal wealth. Charles now had 300,000 livres of income; but he never thought of paying off his uncle's enormous debts: "Laissa toutes les debtes d'iceluy, qui estoyent immenses, à ses créanciers, pour y succéder par droit de bangueroute!" De l'Aubespine, iii. 281. The papal envoy, Cardinal Prospero di Santa Croce, combines the traits of ambition, avarice, and hypocrisy in his portrait of his colleague in the sacred consistory, and makes little of his learning: "Carolus a Lotharingia ... juvenis non illiteratus, ac ingenio versuto et callido, maxime ambitioni et avaritiæ dedito, quæ vitia religionis ac sanctimoniæ simulatione obtegere conabatur." Prosperi Santacrucii de Civilibus Galliæ dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a caustic contemporary pamphlet—Le livre des marchands (1565)—should describe him as "ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent égalles entre deux fers." (Ed. Pantheon, p. 423.)

[547] "Non credo fosse in quel regno desiderata alcuna cosa più che la sua morte." Relaz. di Gio. Michiel, Tommaseo, i. 440. I have united the accounts of two ambassadors, Soranzo and Michiel, the first belonging to 1558, the other to 1561. Both are contained in Tommaseo's edit. of the Relations Vénitiens.

[548] Werke, viii. 141.

[549] Brantôme, Œuvres (Ed. of Fr. Hist. Soc.), iv. 275, etc.

[550] "Et seroit à desirer que ceste femme et le cardinal n'eussent jamais esté; car ces deux seuls out esté les flamesches de nos malheurs." De l'Aubespine, iii. 286. The reader will, after this, make little account of the extravagant panegyric by the Father Alby (inserted by Migne in his Dict. des Card., s. v. Lorraine); yet he may be amused at the precise contradiction between the estimate of the cardinal's political services made by this ecclesiastic and that of the practical statesman given above. He seems to the priest born for the good of others: "ayant pour cela merité de la postérité toutes les louanges d'un homme né pour le bien des autres, et le titre même de cardinal de France, qui lui fut donné par quelques écrivains de son temps." This blundering eulogist makes him to have been assigned by Francis I. as counsellor of his son.

[551] Brantôme, Hommes illustres (Œuvres, viii. 63).

[552] Mém. de Vieilleville, i. 179.

[553] La Planche, 205.

[554] Mém. de Vieilleville, i. 186-189.

[555] "Pour du tout s'asseurer, ils se jettèrent du commencement au party de ceste femme; et specialement le cardinal, qui estoit des plus parfaicts en l'art de courtiser. Comme tel il se gehenna tellement par l'espace de près de deux ans, que ne tenant point de table pour sa personne, il disnoit à la table de Madame; ainsi estoit-elle appellée par la Royne mesme." L'Aubespine, Hist. particulière, iii. 281.

[556] "Ne pouvant doresenavant estre aultre mon intérest que le vostre. De quoy Dieu soit loué," etc. Letter of the Card. of Lorraine, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., ix. (1860), 216.

[557] De Thou, i. 496. Henry was a religious prince also, according to Dandolo. The ambassador's standard, however, was not a very severe one: "Sua maestà si dimostra religiosa, non cavalca la domenica, almen la mattina." Relaz. Venete, ii. 173.

[558] Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i, 43, 44.

[559] Une chambre spéciale composée de "dix ou douze conseillers des plus sçavants et des plus zélés, pour connoistre du faict d'hérésie, sans qu'elle pust vacquer à d'autres affaires." Reg. secr., 17 avril, 1545; Floquet, Hist. du. parl. de Normandie, ii. 241.

[560] In the preamble to the edict of Paris issued two years later, Henry rehearses the ordinance and its motives: "Et pour ceste cause dès nostre nouvel avénement à la couronne, voulans à l'exemple et imitation de feu nostredit seigneur et père, travailler et prester la main à purger et nettoier nostre royaume d'une telle peste, nous aurions pour plus grande et prompte expédition desdites matières et procez sur le fait desdites hérésies, erreurs et fausses doctrines ordonné et estably une chambre particulière en nostre parlement à Paris, pour seulement vaquer ausdites expéditions, sans se divertir à autres actes." Isambert, xiii. 136. Cf. Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.

[561] Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.

[562] Edict of Fontainebleau, Dec. 11, 1547. Isambert, xiii. 37, 38.

[563] A singular illustration of this device is given in a letter recently discovered. In 1542 a printer, to secure for his edition of the Protestant liturgy and psalter a more ready entrance into Roman Catholic cities, added the whimsical imprint: "Printed in Rome, with privilege of the Pope"!—Naturally enough, this very circumstance aroused suspicion at the gates of Metz, and 600 copies were stopped. The ultimate fate of the books is unknown. Letter of Peter Alexander, May 25, 1542, Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Calvini Opera, vi. p. xv. A single copy of this Roman edition has recently come to light. It proves to be the earliest edition thus far discovered of Calvin's Strasbourg Liturgy, the prototype of his Geneva Liturgy. O. Douen, Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot (Paris, 1878), i. 334-339; and farther on in note at the close of this chapter.

[564] Crespin, fols. 152-155. De Thou (i. 446) mistakes the date of the sentence of the Parliament of Paris, March 3, 1548 (1547 Old Style), for that of the execution. The awkward old French practice of making the year begin with Easter, instead of January 1st, has in this, as in many other instances, led to great confusion, even in the minds of those who were perfectly familiar with the custom. The "Histoire ecclésiastique," for instance, places the execution of Brugière in the reign of Francis I., whereas it belongs to the first year of the reign of his son. So does White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 19.

[565] Crespin, fol. 156.

[566] Inedited letter of Constable Montmorency of July 8, 1549, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., ix. (1860) 124, 125. "Voilà," says this document, "le debvoir où ledit seigneur s'est mis pour continuer la possession de ce nom et titre de Très-Chrestien."

[567] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 50, 51. Crespin, fol. 157, etc. The registers of parliament can spare for the auto-da-fé but a few lines at the conclusion of a lengthy description of the magnificent procession, and inaccurately designate the locality: "Cette aprèsdinée fut faicte exécution d'aucuns condamnez au feu pour crime d'hérésie, tant au parvis N. D. que en la place devant Ste. Catherine du Val des Escolliers." Reg. of Parl., July 4, 1549 (Félibien, Preuves, iv. 745, 746).

[568] Anne Audeberte and Louis de Marsac. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 52, 58; Crespin, fols. 156, 227-234.

[569] Isambert, Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 134-138. Of course the provision giving to church courts the right of arrest, so opposed to the spirit of the "Gallican Liberties," displeased parliament, which duly remonstrated (Preuves des libertez de l'ég. gall., iii. 171), but was compelled to register the law, with conditions forbidding the exaction of pecuniary fines, and the sentence of perpetual imprisonment.

[570] De Thou, i. 167. Hist. ecclés., i. 53.

[571] De Thou, ubi supra. Mézeray well remarks that the Protestants recognized the fact then, as they always have done since, in similar circumstances, that there is no more disastrous time for them than when the court of France has a misunderstanding with that of Rome. Abrégé chronologique, iv. 664.

[572] "A right of appeal to the supreme courts has hitherto been, and still is, granted to persons guilty of poisoning, of forgery, and of robbery; yet this is denied to Christians; they are condemned by the ordinary judges to be dragged straight to the flames, without any liberty of appeal.... All are commanded, with more than usual earnestness, to adore the breaden god on bended knee. All parish priests are commanded to read the Sorbonne Articles every Sabbath for the benefit of the people, that a solemn abnegation of Christ may thus resound throughout the land.... Geneva is alluded to more than ten times in the edict, and always with a striking mark of reproach." Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iii. 319, 320. I cannot agree with Soldan (Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 228) in the statement that the Edict of Châteaubriand left the jurisdiction essentially as fixed by the ordinance of Nov. 19, 1549. For the edict does not, as he asserts, permit "the civil judges—presidial judges as well as parliaments—equally with the spiritual, to commence every process." It deprives the ecclesiastical judge, 1st, of the right which the ordinance of 1549 had conferred, of initiating any process where scandal, sedition, etc., were joined to simple heresy, and these cases—under the interpretation of the law—constituted a large proportion of cases; 2d, of the right of deciding with the secular judges in these last-named cases; and 3d, of the power of arrest. De Thou, himself a president of parliament (ii. 375, liv. xvi.), therefore styles it "un édit, par lequel le Roi se réservoit une entière connoissance du Luthéranisme, et l'attribuoit à ses juges, sans aucune exception, à moins que l'hérésie dont il s'agissoit ne demandât quelque éclaircissement, ou que les coupables ne fussent dans les ordres sacrés."

[573] Milton's Areopagitica. This was the view somewhat bitterly expressed in one of the poems of the "Satyres Chrestiennes de la cuisine Papale " (Geneva, 1560; reprinted 1857), addressed "aux Rostisseurs," p. 130:

"Je cognoy, Cagots, que mes liures
Vous sont fascheusement nouueaux.
Bruslez, si en serez deliures
Pour en servir de naueaux.
Mais scavez-vous que c'est, gros veaux,
Fuyez le feu qui s'en fera:
Car la fumée en vos cerueauz
Seulmient vous estouffera."

[574] Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 189-208.

[575] Hist. ecclés., i. 59.

[576] Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Lausanne, May 10, 1552 (Baum, Thedor Beza, i. 423): "Et tamen vix credas quam multi sese libenter his periculis objiciant ut ædificent Ecclesiam Dei."

[577] Beza to Bullinger, Oct. 28, 1551, Baum, i. 417: "Tantum abest ut Evangelii amplificationem ea res (cruentissimum regis edictum) impediat ut contra nihil æque prodesse sentiamus ad oves Christi undique dispersas in unum veluti gregem cogendas. Id testari vel una Geneva satis potest, in quam hodie certatim ex omnibus et Galliæ et Italiæ regionibus tot exules confluunt, ut tantæ multitudini vix nunc sufficiat."

[578] De Thou, ii. 181.

[579] Mémoires de Vieilleville (written by his secretary, Vincent Carloix), ed. Petitot, i. 299-301. This incident belongs to the year 1549.

[580] Histoire ecclés., i. 54-60.

[581] Soldan is scarcely correct (Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i. 235) in representing them to have completed their course of study; "alii diutius quam alii," are the words of Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum, fol. 185.

[582] In fact, there seem to have been two "officials" at Lyons—the ordinary "official" so-called, or "official buatier" as he is styled in the narrative of Écrivain (Baum, i. 392), and the "official de la primace," i. e., of the Archbishop, as Primate of France (Ibid., i. 388).

[583] Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 176.

[584] See a letter of Calvin to the prisoners, in Bonnet, Lettres franç. de Calvin, i. 340.

[585] It was in view of this response of the king that Bullinger wrote to Calvin: "He lives that delivered His people from Egypt; He lives who brought back the captivity from Babylon; He lives who defended His church against Cæsars, kings, and profligate princes. Verily we must needs pass through many afflictions into the kingdom of God. But woe to those who touch the apple of God's eye!" See Calvin's Letters (Eng. trans.), ii. 349, note.

[586] Prof. Baum has graphically described the unsuccessful intercession of the Swiss cantons in his Theodor Beza, i. 177-179.

[587] Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 57.

[588] Ibid., ubi supra; Crespin, Actiones et Mon., fols. 185-217 (also in Galerie Chrétienne, i. 268-330); De Thou, ii. 180, 181. The description of the closing scenes of the lives of the Five Scholars of Lausanne is among the most touching passages in the French martyrology, but the limits of this history do not admit of its insertion (see Baum, i. 179-181, and Soldan, i. 236-238). Their progress to the place of execution was marked by the recital of psalms, the benediction, "The God of peace, that brought again from the dead, etc.," and the Apostles' creed; and, after mutual embraces and farewells, their last words, as their naked bodies, smeared with grease and sulphur, hung side by side over the flames, were: "Be of good courage, brethren, be of good courage!"

[589] Beza to Bullinger, Dec. 24, 1553, and May 8, 1554; Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 431, 438.

[590] The bull of Julius the Third sanctioning the use of these proscribed articles of food—at whose instigation it was given is uncertain—was regarded by the Parliament of Paris as allowing a "scandalous relaxation" of morals, and the keeper of the seals gave orders, by cry of the herald, that all booksellers and printers be forbidden to sell copies of it (Feb. 7, 1553). But this was not sufficient, since the bull was afterward publicly burned by order of Henry the Second and the parliament. Reg. of Parliament, in Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 763; see also ibid., ii. 1033.

[591] Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 258-260.

[592] Garnier, Hist. de France, xxvii. 49, etc., whose account of the attempted introduction of the Spanish Inquisition into France is the most correct and comprehensive.

[593] Ibid., ubi supra; De Thou, ii. 375. The edict establishing the Spanish inquisition is not contained in any collection of laws, as it was never formally registered. Dulaure (Hist. de Paris, iv. 133, 134) gives, apparently from the Reg. criminels du parl., registre coté 101, au 20 mai 1555, an extract from it: "Que les inquisiteurs de la foi et juges ecclésiastiques peuvent librement procéder à la punition des hérétiques, tant clercs que laïcs, jusqu'à sentence dèfinitive inclusivement; que les accusés qui, avant cette sentence, appelleront comme d'abus resteront toujours prisonniers, et leur appel sera porté au parlement. Mais, nonobstant cet appel, si l'accusé est déclaré hérétique par les inquisiteurs, et pour ne pas retarder son châtiment, il sera livré au bras séculier." (Soldan, from Lamothe-Langon, iii. 458, reads exclusivement, which must be wrong, if, indeed, the whole be not a mere paraphrase, which I suspect.)

[594] By the advice of the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Parliament of Paris had been divided into two sections, holding their sessions each for six months, and each vested with the powers of the entire body. This change went into effect July 2, 1554, and lasted three years. It was made ostensibly to relieve the judges and expedite business, but really in the interest of despotism, to diminish the authority of the undivided court sitting throughout the year. De Thou, ii. 246, 247.

[595] The post of Inquisitor-General of the Faith in France, having his seat at Toulouse, had, as we have already seen, long existed. It was filled in 1536 by friar Vidal de Bécanis (the letters patent appointing whom are given in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853), 358). He was succeeded by Louis de Rochetti, who left the Roman Catholic Church, and was burned alive at Toulouse, Sept. 10, 1538. Afterward Bécanis was reinstated (Ibid., ubi supra). A circular letter of this inquisitor-general, accompanying a list of heretical and prohibited works, is given, Ibid., i. 362, 363, 437, etc.

[596] Garnier, Hist. de France, xxvii. 49-54.

[597] The date, Oct. 16th, usually given (by De Thou, Garnier, etc.) for this harangue is incorrect. The publication of the valuable "Mémoires-journaux du Duc de Guise," which Messrs. Michaud and Poujoulat (1851) have brought out of their obscurity, affords us the advantage of reading the account of the deputation and speech of Séguier in the words of his own report, from the Registers of Parliament (pp. 246-249). From this we learn that Séguier and Du Drac left Paris on Saturday, Oct. 19th, reached Villera-Cotterets on Monday the 21st, and had an audience on Tuesday the 22d.

[598] "Qu'il falloit croire l'Escriture et rendre tesmoignage de sa créance par bonnes œuvres, et qui ne la veut croire et accuse les autres estre luthériens, est plus hérétique que les mesmes luthériens." Mémoires de Guise, 248.

[599] Mémoires de Guise, 246-249; Gamier, xxvii. 55-70; De Thou, liv. xvi., ii. 375-377.

[600] Mém. de Guise, 249, 250.

[601] According to Claude Haton (p. 38), a part of the emigrants were, by the king's permission, drawn from the prisons of Paris and Rouen. Nor does the pious curate see anything incongruous in the attempt to employ the released criminals in converting the barbarians to the true faith. However, although Villegagnon was a native of Provins, where Haton long resided, the curate's authority is not always to be received with perfect assurance.

[602] The reconciliation between the statements of the text (in which I have followed the unimpeachable authority of the Hist. ecclés. des églises réformées) and the assertion of the equally authoritative life of Coligny by Francis Hotman (Latin ed., 1575, p. 18, Eng. tr. of D. D. Scott, p. 70). that Coligny's "love for true religion and vital godliness, and his desire to worship God aright," dated from the time of his captivity after the fall of St. Quentin (1557), and the opportunity he then enjoyed for reading the Holy Scriptures, is to be found probably in the view that, having previously been convinced of the truth of the reformed doctrines, he was not brought until then to their bold confession and courageous espousal—acts so perilous in themselves and so fatal to his ambition and to his love of ease. Respecting Villegagnon's promise to establish the "sincere worship of God" in his new colony, see the rare and interesting "Historia navigationis in Braziliam, quæ et America dicitur. Qua describitur autoris navigatio, quæque in mari vidit memoriæ prodenda: Villegagnonis in America gesta, etc. A Joanne Lerio, Burgundo, etc., 1586." Jean l'Hery or Léry was a young man of twenty-two, who accompanied the ministers and skilled workmen whom Villegagnon invited to Brazil, partly from pious motives, partly, as he tells us, from curiosity to see the new world (page 6). Despite his sufferings, the adventurous author, in later years, longed for a return to the wilderness, where among the savages better faith prevailed than in civilized France: "Ita enim apud nos fides nulla superest, resque adeo nostra tota Italica facta est," etc. (page 301).

[603] Jean Léry, ubi supra, 4-6.

[604] What Villegagnon actually believed was an enigma to Léry, for the vice-admiral rejected both transubstantiation and consubstantiation, and yet maintained a real presence. Léry, 58, 54. Cointas had at first solemnly abjured Roman Catholicism, and applied for admission to the Reformed Church. Ibid., 46.

[605] Léry himself is in doubt respecting the exact occasion of the change in Villegagnon's conduct. Some of the colonists were fully persuaded "inde id accidisse, quod a Cardinali Lotharingo, aliisque qui ad eum e Gallia scripserunt ... graviter fuisset reprehensus, quod a Catholica Romanensi Ecclesia descivisset: hisque literis eum ita perterritum fuisse, ut sententiam repente mutaverit." Others believed him guilty of premeditated treachery: "Post meum tamen reditum accepi Villagagnonem cum Card. Lotharingo consilium jam inivisse, antequam e Gallia excederet, de vera Religione simulanda, ut facilius auctoritate Colignii maris præfecti abuterentur," etc. Hist. navig. in Brasiliam, 62, 63.

[606] The Protestants were bearers of a Bellerophontic letter, addressed to the magistrates of whatever French port they might enter, intended to compass their destruction as heretics and rebels. They made the harbor of Hennebon, in Brittany, whose Protestant officers disclosed the secret plan and welcomed the half-famished fugitives. Léry, 304-330; Hist. ecclés., i. 102; La Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et républ., 25.

[607] De Thou, ii. 381-384; Hist. ecclés., 100-102; Léry, 339 et passim; La Place, ubi supra. "Clarissimi, erudissimique viri D. Nicolai Villagagnonis, equitis Rhodii, adversus novitium Calvini ... dogma de sacramento Eucharistiæ, opuscula tria, Coloniæ, 1563." In the preface of the first of these treatises, Villegagnon denies the reports of his fickleness and cruelty as slanders of the returning Protestants, and defends his conduct in throwing the three monks into the sea. In a dedication to Constable Montmorency (dated 1560) he clears himself from the charge of atheism brought against him because he expelled the ministers "on discovering the vanity of their religion." There are subjoined Richier's articles, etc.

[608] Hist. ecclés., i. 61.

[609] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 61-63.

[610] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 63-71.

[611] "In Gallia pergunt ecclesiæ zelo plane mirabili. Parisienses novum ministrum petunt, quern brevi, ut spero, missuri sumus." Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 1, 1556 (Baum, i. 450).

[612] Beza to Bullinger, Feb. 12, 1556 (Ib., i. 453). The curate of Mériot deplores the progress of the Reformation during this year. "L'hérésie prenoit secrètement pied en France.... Mais ah! le malheur advint tel que la plus part des grands juges de la court de parlement, comme présidens et conseillers, furent et estoient intoxiquez et empoisonnez de ladite hérésie luthérienne et calvinienne, et qui pis est de la moytié, se trouva finallement des évesques qui estoient tous plains et couvers de ceste mauldite farinne. Et pour ce que le roy tenoit le main forte pour faire pugnir de la peine du feu les coulpables, y en avait mille à sa suitte et en la ville de Paris, lesquelz faisoient bonne mine et meschant jeu, feignoient d'estre vrays catholiques, et en leur secret et consciences estoient parfaictz héréticques." Mém. de Claude Haton, 27.

[613] The execution of the "Five from Geneva" at Chambéry, in Savoy—then, as now again, a part of France—and the violent persecution in the neighborhood of Angers, are well known (Crespin, fols. 283-321; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 68, 69). The inclination to resist force by force, manifested by some Protestants in Anjou, was promptly discouraged by Calvin; letter of April 19, 1556 (Lettres franç., ii. 90). The number and names of the martyrs will probably never be ascertained. "N'estoit quasi moys de l'an qu'on n'en bruslast à Paris, à Meaux et à Troie en Champagne deux ou trois, en aulcun moy plus de douze. Et si pour cela les aultres ne cessoient de poursuivre leur entreprinse de mettre en avant leur faulce religion." Mém. de Cl. Haton, 48. The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., vii. (1858) 14, extracts from the registers of the Parliament of Toulouse, June 11, 1556, the sentence of a victim hitherto unknown—one Blondel. He had dared to protest against the impiety of the procession of the "Fête-Dieu," or "Corpus Christi," by singing "a profane hymn of Clément Marot." Parliament turned aside from the procession, and in the sacristy of the church of St. Stephen rapidly tried him, and ordered him to be burned the same day at the stake in a public square, as a "reparation of the injury done to the holy faith." Certainly a church dedicated to the Christian protomartyr was not the most appropriate place for drawing up such a decree!

[614] De Thou, ii. 404.

[615] De Thou, ii. 412-416.

[616] The papal letter sent by the hands of Caraffa to Henry (together with a sword and hat solemnly blessed by Paul himself) is reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 425, 426.

[617] De Thou, ii. 417.

[618] A letter of Henry himself to M. de Selve, his ambassador at Rome, gives us the fact of the effort and of its failure: "Voyant les hérésies et faulces doctrines, qui à mon très grand regret, ennuy et desplaisir, pullulent en mes royaume et pays de mon obéissance, j'avoys despiéca advisé, selon les advis que le cardinal Caraffe estant dernièrement pardeça m'en a donné de la part de nostre Saint-Père, de mettre sus et introduire l'inquisition selon la forme de droict, pour estre le vray moien d'extirper la racine de telles erreurs, pugnir et corriger ceulx qui lea font et commettent avec leurs imitateurs, toutes fois pour ce que en cela se sont trouvez quelques difficultez, alléguant ceulx des estats de mon royaume, lesquels ne veulent recevoir, approuver, ne observer la dicte inquisition, les troubles, divisions et aultres inconveniens qu'elle pourroit apporter avec soy, et mesmes, en ce temps de guerre, il m'a semblé pour le mieulx de y parvenir par aultre voye," etc. Mémoires de Guise, p. 338. The letter is inaccurately given in Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xviii. 623. See Dulaure, H. de Paris, iv. 135.

[619] "Comme celluy qui ne désire autre chose en ce monde, que veoir mon peuple nect et exempt d'une telle dangereuse peste et vermyne que sont lesdictes hérésies et faulces et reprouvées doctrines." Henry to De Selve, ubi supra.

[620] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xviii. 62.

[621] Sir Wm. Pickering to Council, Melun, Sept. 4, 1551, State Paper Office MSS. Patrick Fraser Tytler, Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, i. 420.

[622] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 72.

[623] See the declaration of Henry, in Preuves des Libertez de l'Égl. gallicane, part iii. 174.

[624] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 72, 73.

[625] "Hoc quidem tibi possum pro comperto affirmare regnum Dei tantum nunc progressum in decem minimum Galliæ urbibus ac Lutetiæ præsertim facere ut magni nescio quid Dominus illic moliri aperte videatur." Beza to Bullinger, March 27, 1557, Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 461.

[626] At Autun, in Sept., 1556. Hist. ecclés., i. 70. No wonder that the example set by the judges of Autun "served greatly to instruct others!"

[627] Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 494-497. The respective jurisdictions of the clerical and lay judges remained the same. An article, however, was appended declaring that in future the confiscated property of condemned heretics should no more inure to the crown, or be granted to private individuals, but should be applied to charitable purposes. What a feeble barrier this provision proved to the cupidity of the courtiers, long glutted with the spoils of "Lutherans"—real or pretended—the case of Philippine de Luns showed very clearly, some two or three months later.

[628] Besides the accounts of the disastrous battle of St. Quentin given by the Mémoires of Rabutin, Coligny and other contemporaries, and by De Thou and other historians of a somewhat later date, the graphic narrative of its incidents contained in Prescott's Reign of Philip the Second (lib. i., c. vii.) is well worthy of perusal.

[629] Prescott, i. 240, note.

[630] "Comme feu soubs la cendre." Recueil gén. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 134.

[631] By an unpardonable negligence, Mr. Browning places the "affaire de la rue St. Jacques" before the battle of St. Quentin, in the month of May, 1557. History of the Huguenots, i. 45.

[632] A contemporary account of the affair by the reformer Knox, dated Dieppe, Dec. 7, 1557, although it adds little to our knowledge of the incidents, is of considerable interest. I cite a few sentences: "Almost in everie notabill Citie within France thair be assemblit godlie Congregationis of sic as refusit all societie with the sinagoge of Sathan, so were (and yit are) dyvers Congregationis in Paris, and kirkis having thair learnit ministeris for preishing Chrystis Evangell, and for trew ministratioun of the halie Sacramentis instited be him. The brute whairof being spred abrod, great search was maid for thair aprehensioun, and at lenth, according to the pre-disingnit consall of oure God, who hath apoyntit the memberis to be lyke to the heid, the bludthirstie wolves did violentlie rusche in amongis a portioun of Chrystis simpill lambis. For thois hell-houndis of Sorbonistis, accompanyit with the rascall pepill, and with sum sergeantis maid apt for thair purpois, did so furiouslie invade a halie assemblie convenit (nye the number of four hundreth personis) to celebrat the memorie of oure Lordis deth," etc. Printed from MS. volume in possession of Dr. McCrie, in David Laing's Works of John Knox (Edinb., 1855), iv. 299.

[633] "As ravisching wolves rageing for blood, murderit sum, oppressit all, and schamfullie intreatit both men and wemen of great blude and knawin honestie." Knox, ubi supra, p. 300.

[634] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 73-75. This detailed and most authentic account is taken verbatim from that of Crespin, which may be read in the Galerie chrétienne, ii. 253-259; De la Place (ed. Panthéon lit.), p. 4; De Thou, v. 530. Claude Haton gives a story which bears but a faint resemblance to the truth—the mingled result of imperfect information and prejudice. Mémoires, i. 51-53.

[635] "And yit is not this the end and chief point of thair malice; for thai, as children of thair father, wha is the autour of all lies, incontinent did spread a most schamfull and horribill sclander, to wit, that thai convenit upon the nycht for no uthir cause but to satisfie the filthie lustis of the flesche." Knox, ubi supra, p. 300. For an unfriendly account of the pretended orgies, see Claude Haton (Mém.), i. 49-51.

[636] Foul play was even employed, in addition to barbarous treatment, if Knox was rightly informed: "But theis cruell tirantis and privie murdereris, as thai have permittit libertie of toung to none, sa by poysone haif thai murderit dyvers in prisone." Knox, ubi supra.

[637] Henry ordered parliament to try the accused by a commission consisting of two presidents and sixteen counsellors, and enjoined that this matter should take precedence of all others. Hist. ecclés des égl. réf., ubi infra; Crespin, ubi infra.

[638] The courageous words of Philippine de Luns, when she was bidden to give her tongue to have it cut off, were long remembered: "Since I bemoan not my body," said she, "shall I bemoan my tongue?" Beza alludes to her as "matrona quædam et genere et pietate valde nobilis, fidem ad extremum usque spiritum professa signis omnibus, quum, abscisa lingua et ardente face pudendis ipsius turpissime ac crudelissime injecta, torreretur." Beza ad Turicenses (inhabitants of Zurich), Nov. 24, 1557; given in Baum, App. to vol. i. 501; Hist. ecclés., i. 82. A courtier, the Marquis of Trans, son-in-law of the keeper of the seals, was not ashamed to ask for and obtain the confiscation of her estates, in violation of the provision of the late Edict of Compiègne, "que plusieurs trouvèrent mauvais." De la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et république, soubs les rois Henry et François Seconds et Charles Neufviesme, p. 4.

[639] Beza to Farel, Nov. 11, 1557, Baum, i. 490.

[640] The Scotch reformer, John Knox, being detained by unfavorable tidings at Dieppe, on his return from Geneva, not only devoted himself to visiting and strengthening his persecuted brethren in France (M'Crie, Life of Knox, i. 202; Brandes, J. Knox, Elberfeld, 1862, p. 136), but had the Apology of the Parisian Protestants translated into English, himself adding the prefatory remarks, from which several quotations have been made above. The treatise seems never to have been printed until the present century, the probable reason, according to Mr. Laing, being the subsequent release of so many of the prisoners as survived.

[641] "Jusques icy ceulx qui out esté appeléz au martyre ont esté contemptibles au monde, tant pour la qualité de leurs personnes, que pource que le nombre n'a pas esté si grand pour ung coup. Que sçavons-nous s'il a desjà appresté une issue telle qu'il y aura de quoy nous esjouir et le glorifier au double?" Letter of Calvin, Sept 16, 1557. Bonnet, Lett. fr. de Calv., ii. 139-145.

[642] Calvin aux églises de Lausanne, de Mouden, et de Payerne, Ibid., ii. 150, 151.

[643] The MS. letter of Beza and his companions to the "Seigneurs" of Berne (to whom their allies had referred the entire matter, in order to obviate all delay), dated Basle, Sept. 27, 1557, is in the archives of Berne, and has been printed for the first time in the Bulletin, xvii. (April, 1868) 164-166. The writers urge the utmost haste, both for the sake of the prisoners of Paris and of some other Protestants confined in the dungeons of Dijon.

[644] This was particularly the advice of the friendly Count George of Montbéliard, as recorded by Beza: "Comes fuit in ea sententia, ut, dum Helvetii priores cum rege agerent, sollicitaremus alios etiam Germanos principes, ac præsertim eos, a quibus Pharao ille nova auxilia hoc ipso tempore postularet." Letter to Zurich, Nov. 24, 1557, Baum, i. 495.

[645] "Par la response que le roy fit dernièrement aux députés que les seigneurs des cantons de Zurich, Berne, Basle et Schaffouse, ses très-chers et bons amys envoyèrent par deçà à la requeste de ceulx de la vallée d'Angrogne, pour le faict de la religion, Sa Majesté estimoit que les dicts seigneurs des dicts cantons se contenteroient et ne prendroient plus d'occasion de renvoyer devers luy pour semblable cause, comme ils ont faict les seigneurs Johan Escher, Jean Wyss, Jacob Gœtz et Louys Oechsly, présens porteurs ... ce que le dict seigneur a trouvé un pen estrange, pour la considération qu'il a tousiours eue envers les dicts seigneurs des cantons et aultres ses amys de ne s'empescher ni soulcier des choses qui touchent l'administration de leurs Estats, ni la justice de leurs subiets, ainsi qu'il luy semble qu'ils doibvent [faire] envers luy, priant les dicts seigneurs des dicts cantons estre contans de doresnavant ne se donner peine de ce qu'il fera et exécutera en son royaulme, et moings au faict de la religion, qu'il veult et a délibéré d'observer et suivre, telle que ses prédécesseurs et luy (comme roys très-chrestiens) ont faict par le passé, et contenir ses dicts subiects en icelle, dont il n'a à rendre compte à aultre que à Dieu, par l'aide, bonté et protection duquel il s'asseure maintenir son dict royaulme en estat, en la tranquillité et prospérité là où il a esté jusques icy." Réponse du roi. The Swiss envoys were intrusted on their return with a letter from the Cardinal of Lorraine to the magistrates of the Protestant cantons, full as usual of honeyed words. It closed with these words: "Priant Dieu, Messieurs, vous donner ce que plus désyrez. De Sainct-Germain en Laye, le 6^e jour de novembre 1557. Vostre meilleur voysin et amy, Cardinal de Lorraine." This was pretty fair dissembling even for the smooth tongue of the arch-persecutor of the Huguenots. It must be confessed, however, that the sheep's clothing never seemed to fit him well; the wolfish foot or the bloodthirsty jaws had an irresistible propensity to show themselves. The letter of the cantons, the king's reply, and Lorraine's letter, from the MSS. in the archives of Basle, are printed in the Bulletin de la Société de l'hist. du prot. français, xvii. 164-167.

[646] Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 317; Heppe, Leben Theod. Beza, 52-58.

[647] "Ab eo tempore (Oct. 23d) audimus perlectis Palatini literis datas aliquas judiciorum inducias." Beza's letter of Nov. 24th, ubi supra. It is not improbable that the interference of Henry's allies had some salutary effect, in spite of the rough answer they received. Hist. ecclés. des églises réf., i. 84, which, however, says nothing of the reply to the Swiss.

[648] Beza, letter of Nov. 24, 1557, ubi supra. See a letter of Calvin to this noblewoman (Dec. 8, 1557), Lettres franç. (Bonnet), ii. 159.

[649] Hist. ecclés., i. 84.

[650] Calvin to Bullinger, Bonnet (Eng. tr.), iii. 411; Baum, i. 317, 318.

[651] Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées, i. 78.

[652] Cf. the anonymous letter to Henry the Second, inserted in La Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et république (éd. Panthéon Littéraire), p. 5; and in Crespin (see Galerie chrétienne, ii. 246).

[653] Guise's glory was, according to parliament, in registering (Feb. 15th) the king's gift to him of the "maison des marchands" at Calais, "d'avoir expugné une place et conquis un pays que depuis deux cens ans homme n'avoit non seulement entrepris de faict, mais ne compris en l'esprit." Reg. of Parliament, apud Mémoires de Guise, p. 422.

[654] De Thou, ii. 549-552; Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 255-257.

[655] Hist. ecclés. i. 87, 88.

[656] In Normandy the burdens imposed by the war indirectly favored the growth of Protestantism. "The troubles of religion were great in this kingdom during the year 1558," writes a quaint local antiquarian. "The common people was pretty easily seduced. Moreover, the 'imposts' and 'subsidies' were so excessive that, in many villages, no assessments of 'tailles' were laid; the 'tithes' (on ecclesiastical property) were so high that the curates and vicars fled away, through fear of being imprisoned, and divine service ceased to be said in a large number of parishes adjoining this city of Caen: as in the villages of Plumetot, Periers, Sequeville, Puto, Soliers, and many others. Seeing which, some preachers who had come out of Geneva took possession of the temples and churches." Les Recherches et Antiquitez de la ville de Caen, par Charles de Bourgueville, sieur du lieu, etc. Caen, 1588. Pt. ii. 162.

[657] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 89.

[658] The letter, dated March 19th, is reproduced in the Galerie chrét., abridgment of Crespin, ii. 266-269. Melanchthon wrote, in the name of the theologians assembled at Worms, an earnest appeal to the same monarch, on the 1st of Dec, 1557. Opera Mel. (Bretschneider), ix. 383-385.

[659] Hist. ecclés., i. 89. Galerie chrétienne, ii. 270.

[660] See Dulaure's plan of Paris under Francis I. Hist. de Paris, Atlas.

[661] The date is fixed as well by the Reg. of Parliament (cf. infra), as by a passage in a letter of Calvin to the Marquis of Vico, of July 19, 1558 (Lettres franç., Bonnet, ii. 212), in which the psalm-singing is alluded to as having occurred "about two months ago"—"il y a environ deux moys."

[662] De Thou, ii. 578.

[663] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 90. How large a body of Parisians took part in these demonstrations appears from the Registers of Parliament. On the 17th of May, 1558, the Bishop of Paris reported to parliament that he had given orders to find out "les autheurs des assemblées qui se sont faictes ces jours icy, tant au pré aux Clercs, que par les rues de cette ville de Paris, et à grandes troupes de personnes, tant escolliers, gentilshommes, damoiselles que autres chantans à haute voix chansons et pseaumes de David en François." On the following day the procureur general was directed to inquire into the "monopoles, conventicules et assembées illicites, qui se font chacun jour en divers quartiers et fauxbourgs de cette ville de Paris, tant d'hommes que de femmes, dont la pluspart sont en armes, et chantent publiquement à haute voix chansons concernant le faict de la religion, et tendant à sedition et commotion populaire, et perturbation du repos et tranquillité publique." Reg. of Parl., apud Félibien, Hist. de Paris, Preuves, iv. 783. The charge of carrying arms seems to have been true only so far that the "gentilshommes" wore their swords as usual.

[664] La Place, Commentaires de l'estat, etc., p. 9; De Thou, ii. 563.

[665] Hist. ecclés. de Bretagne depuis la réformation jusqu'à l'édit de Nantes, par Philippe Le Noir, Sieur de Crevain. Published from the MS. in the library of Rennes, by B. Vaurigaud, Nantes, 1851, 2-17.

[666] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 91.

[667] Ib., ubi supra.

[668] De Thou, ii. 566, 567; Hist. ecclés., ubi supra; La Place, Commentaires de l'estat, pp. 9, 10; Calvin, Lettres franç. (July 19th), ii. 212, 213.

[669] The closing words of this letter, written probably in May, 1558, and published for the first time in the Bull. de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr. (1854), iii. 243-245, from the MS. belonging to the late Col. Henri Tronchin, are so brave and so loyal, that the reader will readily excuse their insertion: "Et ce que je vous demande, Sire, n'est point, grâces à Dieu, pour crainte de la mort, et moins encore pour désir que j'aye de recouvrer ma liberté, car je n'ay rien si cher que je n'abandonne fort voluntiers pour le salut de mon âme et la gloire de mon Dieu. Mais, toutefois, la perplexité où je suis de vous vouloir satisfaire et rendre le service que je vous doibs, et ne le pouvoir faire en cela avec seureté de ma conscience, me travaille et serre le cueur tellement que pour m'en délivrer j'ay esté contrainct de vous faire ceste très humble requeste."

[670] Cf. Calvin's letter to the Marq. of Vico, July 19, 1558. Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 213, 214: "Sa femme luy monstrant son ventre pour l'esmouvoir à compassion du fruict qu'elle portoit."

[671] Among the many important services which the French Protestant Historical Society has rendered, the rescue from oblivion of the interesting correspondence relating to D'Andelot's imprisonment merits to be reckoned by no means the least (Bulletin, iii. 238-255). Even the graphic narrative of the Histoire ecclésiastique fails to give the vivid impression conveyed by a perusal of these eight documents emanating from the pens of D'Andelot, Macar (one of the pastors at Paris), and Calvin. The dates of these letters, in connection with a statement in the Hist. ecclés., fix the imprisonment of D'Andelot as lasting from May to July, 1558. A month later Calvin wrote to Garnier: "D'Andelot, the nephew of the constable, has basely deceived our expectations. After having given proofs of invincible constancy, in a moment of weakness he consented to go to mass, if the king absolutely insisted on his doing so. He declared publicly, indeed, that he thus acted against his inclinations; he has nevertheless exposed the gospel to great disgrace. He now implores our forgiveness for this offence.... This, at least, is praiseworthy in him, that he avoids the court, and openly declares that he had never abandoned his principles." Letter of Aug. 29th, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460; see also Ath. Coquerel, Précis de l'histoire de l'égl. réf. de Paris, Pièces historiques, pp. xxii.-lxxvi.; twenty-one letters of Macar belonging to 1558. If the reformers condemned D'Andelot's concession, Paul the Fourth, on the other hand, regarded his escape from the estrapade as proof positive that not only Henry, but even the Cardinal of Lorraine, was lukewarm in the defence of the faith! Read the following misspelt sentences from a letter of Card. La Bourdaisière, the French envoy to Rome, to the constable (Feb. 25, 1559), now among the MSS. of the National Library of Paris. The Pope had sent expressly for the ambassador: "Il me declara que cestoit pour me dire quil sebayssoit grandement comme sa magesté ne faysoit autre compte de punyr les hereticques de son Royaume et que limpunite de monsieur dandelot donnoit une tres mauvayse reputation a sadicte mageste devant laquelle ledict Sr. dandelot avoit confessé destre sacramentayre et qui leust (qu 'il l'eût) mené tout droit au feu comme il meritoit ... que monsieur le cardinal de Lorrayne, lequel sa Saincteté a fait son Inquisiteur, ne se sauroit excuser quil nayt grandement failly ayant layssé perdre une si belle occasion dun exemple si salutayre et qui luy pouvoit porter tant dhonneur et de reputation, mais quil monstre bien que luy mesme favorise les hereticques, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser de la puyssance que sadicte Saincteté luy a donnée." Of course, Paul could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the Pontiff evidently regarded as a thing to be executed rather than spoken about, and he therefore begged the French ambassador to write the letter to the king in his own cipher, and advise him "to let no one in the world see his letter." Whereupon Card. La Bourdaisière rather irreverently observes: "Je croy que le bonhomme pense que le roy dechiffre luy mesme ses lettres!" a supposition singularly absurd in the case of Henry, who hated business of every kind. La Bourdaisière conceived it, on the other hand, to be for his own interest to take the first opportunity to give private information of the entire conversation to the constable, D'Andelot's uncle, and to advise him that it would go hard with his nephew, should he fall into Paul's hands ("quil feroit un mauvais parti sil le tenoit"). Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i. (appendix), 607, 608; Bulletin de l'histoire du prot. français, xxvii. (1878), 103, 104.

[672] Letter of Calvin, Aug. 29, 1558, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460.

[673] De Thou (liv. 20), ii. 568, etc., 576, etc.

[674] Prescott, Philip II., i. 268-270, has described the straits in which Philip found himself in consequence of the deplorable state of his finances. Henry was compelled to resort to desperate schemes to procure the necessary funds. As early as February, 1554—a year before the truce of Vaucelles—he published an edict commanding all the inhabitants of Paris to send in an account of the silver plate they possessed. Finding that it amounted to 350,000 livres, he ordered his officers to take and convert it into money, which he retained, giving the owners twelve per cent. as interest on the compulsory loan. They were informed, and were doubtless gratified to learn, that the measure was not only one of urgency, but also precautionary—lest the necessity should arise for the seizure of the plate, without compensation, it may be presumed. Reg. des ordon., apud Félibien, H. de Paris, preuves, v. 287-290.

[675] Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 270.

[676] De Thou, ii. 584, 585, 660, etc.

[677] More than one hundred thousand lives and forty millions crowns of gold, if we may believe the Mémoires de Vieilleville, ii. 408, 409. "Quod multo sanguine, pecunia incredibili, spatio multorum annorum Galli acquisierant, uno die magna cum ignominia tradiderunt," says the papal nuncio, Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. com., 1437. See, however, Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Am. tr., p. 127.

[678] Mém. de Vieilleville, ubi supra. The text of the treaty is given in Recueil gén. des anc. lois françaises, xiii. 515, etc., and in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. pt. 1, pp. 34, etc.; the treaty between France and England, with scrupulous exactness, as usual, in Dr. P. Forbes, State Papers, i. 68, etc.

[679] The prevalent sentiment in France is strongly expressed by Brantôme, by the memoirs of Vieilleville, of Du Villars, of Tavannes, etc. "La paix honteuse fut dommageable," says Tavannes; "les associez y furent trahis, les capitaines abandonnez à leurs ennemis, le sang, la vie de tant de Français negligée, cent cinquante forteresses rendues, pour tirer de prison un vieillard connestable, et se descharger de deux filles de France." Mém. de Gaspard de Saulx, seign. de Tavannes, ii. 242. Du Villars represents the Duke of Guise as remonstrating with Henry for giving up in a moment more than he could have lost in thirty years, and as offering to guard the least considerable city among the many he surrendered against all the Spanish troops: "Mettez-moy dedans la pire ville de celles que vous voulez rendre, je la conserveray plus glorieusement sur la bresche, etc." (Ed. Petitot, ii. 267, liv. 10). But the duke's own brother was one of the commissioners; and Soldan affirms the existence of a letter from Guise to Nevers (of March 27, 1559) in the National Library, fully establishing that the duke and the cardinal understood and were pleased with the substance of the treaty (Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 266, note).

[680] "Henricus rex se propterea quacumque ratione pacem inire voluisse dicebat, 'quod intelligeret, regnum Franciæ ad heresim declinare, magnumque in numerum venisse, ita ut, si diutius diferret, neque ipsius conscientiæ, neque regni tranquillitati prospiceret: ... se propterea ad quasvis pacis conditiones descendisse, ut regnum hæreticis ac malis hominibus purgaret.' Hæc ab eo satis frigide et cum pudore dicebantur." Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. comment., 1437.

[681] Ibid., ubi supra.

[682] "Selon l'article secret de la paix," says Tavannes (Mém., ii. 247, Ed. Petitot), "les heretiques furent bruslez en France, plus par crainte qu'ils ne suivissent l'exemple des revoltez d'Allemagne, que pour la religion." But, it may be asked, was there anything novel in this? It had needed no secret article, for a generation back, to conduct a "Christaudin" to the flames.

[683] The English commissioners, Killigrew and Jones, in a despatch written eight or nine months later, express the current belief respecting the wide scope of the persecution: "Wheras, upon the making of the late peace, there was an appoinctement made betwene the late Pope, the French King, and the King of Spaine, for the joigning of their forces together for the suppression of religion; it is said, that this King mindethe shortly to send to this new Pope [Pius IV.], for the renewing of the same league; th' end wherof was to constraine the rest of christiendome, being protestants, to receive the Pope's authorité and his religion; and therupon to call a generall counsaill." Letter from Blois, January 6, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 296.

[684] "Voila," says Agrippa d'Aubigné, "les conventions d'une paix en effect pour les royaumes de France et d'Espagne, en apparence de toute la Chrestienté, glorieuse aux Espagnols, desaventageuse aux François, redoutable aux Reformez: car comme toutes les difficultez qui se presenterent au traicté estoient estouffées par le desir de repurger l'église, ainsi, après la paix establie, les Princes qui par elle avoient repos du dehors, travaillerent par emulation à qui traitteroit plus rudement ceux qu'on appeloit Heretiques: et de là nasquit l'ample subject de 40 ans de guerre monstrueuse." Histoire universelle, liv. i., c. xviii. p. 46.

[685] "Mais quand estant en France j'eus entendu de la propre bouche du Roy Henry, que le Duc d'Alve traictoit des moyens pour exterminer tous les suspects de la Religion en France, en ce Pays et par toute la Chrestienté, et que ledit Sieur Roy (qui pensoit, que comme j'avois esté l'un des commis pour le Traicté de la Paix, avois eu communication en si grandes affaires, que je fusse aussi de cette partie) m'eust declaré le fond du Conseil du Roy d'Espaigne et du Duc d'Alve: pour n'estre envers Sa Majesté en desestime, comme si on m'eust voulu cacher quelque chose, je respondis en sorte que ledit Sieur Roy ne perdit point cette opinion, ce qui luy donna occasion de m'en discourir assés suffisament pour entendre le fonds du project des Inquisiteurs." Apologie de Guillaume IX., Prince d'Orange, etc., Dec. 13, 1580; apud Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v., pt. 1, p. 392.

[686] De Thou, ii. (liv. xxii.), 653.

[687] "De nostre costé nous ne sçavons pas si nous sommes loing des coups; tant y a que nous sommes menasséz par-dessus tout le reste." Calvin to the Church of Paris, June 29, 1559. Lettres franç., ii. 282, 283. On the next day the author of the threats was mortally wounded in the tournament.

[688] The Duke of Alva gives all the details of this remarkable negotiation in a letter to Philip, June 26, 1559, now among the Papiers de Simancas, ser. B., Leg. no. 62-140, which M. Mignet has printed in his valuable series of articles reviewing the Collection of Calvin's French Letters by M. Bonnet, published in the Journal des Savants, 1857, pp. 171, 172. An extract, without date, from a MS. in the Library at Turin, seems to refer to this time: "Le roi (Henri II.) déclare criminels de lèse-majesté tous ceux qui auront quelque commerce avec Genève, ou en recevront lettres. Cette ville est cause de tous les malheurs de la France, et il la poursuivra à outrance pour la réduire. Il promet secours de gens de pied et de cheval au duc de Savoie, et vient d'obtenir du pape un bref pour décider le roi d'Espagne. Ils vont unir leurs forces pour une si sainte enterprise." Gaberel, Hist. de l'égl. de Genève, i. 442.

[689] And he did not exaggerate the importance of the crisis. The adherents of the reformed faith had become numerous, and many were restive under their protracted sufferings. "I am certainly enformid," wrote the English ambassador, Throkmorton, to Secretary Cecil (May 15, 1559), "that about the number of fifty thousand persones in Gascoigne, Guyen, Angieu, Poictiers, Normandy, and Main, have subscribed to a confession in religion conformable to that of Geneva; which they mind shortly to exhibit to the King. There be of them diverse personages of good haviour (sic): and it is said amongst the same, that after they have delivered their confession to the King, that the spiritualty of Fraunce will do all they can to procure the King, to the utter subversion of them: for which cause, they say, the spiritualty seemeth to be so glad of peaxe, for that they may have that so good an occasion to worke their feate. But," he adds, "on th' other side these men minde, in case any repressing and subversion of their religion be ment and put in execution against them, to resist to the deathe." Forbes, State Papers, i. 92.

[690] "Heri scriptum est ad me Lutetia.... Sorbonicos ad Regem cucurrisse et tempus ejus eonveniendi aucupatos petiisse curam inquirendorum Lutheranorum. Quum Rex respondisset: 'Se eam curam Senatui mandasse, iique respondissent, 'totam curiam Parlamenti Parisienis inquinatam esse,' iracunde intulisse, 'quid vultis igitur faciam, aut quid consilii capiam? An ut vos in eorum locum substituam, et Rempublicam meam administretis?'" Letter of Hotman to Bullinger, Aug. 15, 1556, apud Baum, Theod. Beza, i. 294.

[691] "The king, however, looks on all the judges with a suspicious eye." Calvin to Garnier, Aug. 29, 1558. Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460.

[692] Séguier, the leading jurist in the Parisian Parliament, like most of the judges that possessed much legal acumen, and all those that were inclined to tolerant sentiments, was reputed unsound in the faith. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, the English ambassador, says of him: "One of the Presidentes of the court of Parliament, named Siggier, a verey wise man, and one whome the constable for his judgement dothe muche stay upon, is noted to be a Protestant, and of the chiefest setters forward and favorers of the rest of that courte against the cardinalles." The same accurate observer states that, of the "six score" counsellors present in the Parliamentary session which Henry attended, only "one of the Presidentes called Magistri and fourteen others were of the King and the cardinalles side, and did agree with them and condescend to the punishment of suche as shuld seme to resist to the cardinalles orders devised for reformation toching religion: the said Siggier, Rancongnet, and another President, with the rest of the counsaillors, were all against the cardinalles. Whereupon it is judged," he adds, "that the House of Guise hathe taken this occasion to weaken the constable: and because they wold not directly begynne with Siggier, for feare of manifesting their practise, they have founde the meanes to cause these counsaillors to be taken; supposing, that in th' examination of them somme mater may be gathered to toche Siggier withall, and therby to overthrow him." Despatch of June 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 127.

[693] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 106.

[694] When President Séguier was defending himself and his colleagues from the charge made by the Cardinal of Lorraine that they did not punish the heretics, and alleged as proof the fact that only three accused of "Lutheranism" remained in their prison, the cardinal rejoined: "Voire, vous les avez expédiez en les renvoyant devant leurs évesques! Vrayement voylà une belle expédition, à ceux mesmes qui out faict profession de leur foy devant vous, tout au contraire de la saincte église de Rome!" Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et rép., p. 11.

[695] "Non, non, dict-il, monsieur le président; mais vous estes cause que non seulement Poictiers, mais tout Poictou jusques au pays de Bordeaux, Tholouse, Provence, et généralement France est toute remplie de ceste vermine, qui s'augmente et pullule soubs espérance de vous." Ib., ubi supra.

[696] Ib., ubi supra, Hist. ecclés., i. 107, 108.

[697] La Place, Comm. de l'estat de la rel. et rép., p 12.

[698] Idem. Serranus, de statu, etc., i., fol. 14.

[699] "There is another consideration of the proceadings of these maters, whiche (savyng your Majestie's correction) in myne opinion, is as great as the rest: ... that forasmuch as the multitude of Protestantes, being spred abrode in sundry partes of this realme in diverse congregations, ment now amiddes of all these triumphes to use the meane of somme nobleman to exhibit to the King their confession (wherof your Majesté shall receive a copie herwithal) to th' intent the same mighte have bene openly notified to the world; the King being lothe, that at the arrivall here of the Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Alva, and others, these maters shuld have appeared so farre forward, hathe thought good before hande, for the daunting of suche as might have semed to be doers therin, to prevent their purpose by handeling of these counsaillors in this sorte." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 128.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[706] La Place, Comm. de l'estat, etc., p. 13; Hist. ecclés., i. 122; (Crespin, Gal. chrét., ii. 303); De Thou, ii. 670. Félibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1066.

[707] La Place, ubi supra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[714] "Duquel lieu tous les prisonniers de léans pouvoyent ouir les clairons, hault-bois et trompettes dudict tournoy." Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., Recueil des choses mémorables, p. 5; Mémoires de Condé, i. 216.

[715] Ibid., ubi supra.

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

[717] "Paix blasmable, dont les flambeaux de joye furent les torches funèbres du roy Henry II." Mém. de Tavannes, ii. 242.

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

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

[720] Pierre de Lestoile, 14.

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

[722] Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., in fine. Recueil des choses mémorables, and Mém. de Condé, i. 216.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[729] Davila, p. 20.

[730] "Lancea sanctorum tunc inopina salus." Epigram apud Le Laboureur, Additions aux mém. de Castelnau, i. 276.

[731]

Sic cruce detractum fixit tua lancea Christum,
Per latus illorum quos sua membra vocat.
At Deus omnipotens, Christi justissimus ultor,
Sanguine, dixit, erit lancea tincta tuo. Ib., ubi supra.

[732] "O que si ce bon roy eusse vescu," says Montluc, "ou si ceste paix ne se fust faite, qu'il eust bien rembarré les Luthériens en Allemagne." Mémoires, Petitot ed., ii. 483.

[733] Davila, Civil Wars of France, p. 6. Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, Recueil des choses mémorables, in initio; Mém. de Condé, i. 320.

[734] Yet Catharine herself, in a letter written in 1563 to her son Charles IX., just after he had declared himself to be of age, admits the full truth of her opponents' assertion, that Francis II. was a minor!—"que l'on cognoisse les désordres qui out esté jusques icy par la minorité du Roy vostre frère, qui empeschoit que l'on ne pouvoit faire ce que l'on désiroit." Avis donnez par Catherine de Médicis à Charles IX., pour la police de sa cour, etc., printed in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, v. 245-254.

[735] "Di natura benignissima, e cerca di gratificare ciascuno, e massime gl' Italiani quanto più gli è possibile, ed è tanto amato, non solamente da tutta la corte, ma da tutto il regno che è cosa incredibile." Rel. del clar^mo Giovanni Soranzo, 1558, Relaz. Ven., ii. 429, 430.

[736] "La Royne mère, ambitieuse et craintive." Mém. de Tavannes, ii. 256.

[737] Relaz. di Giovanni Michiel (1561), Tommaseo, i. 426.

[738] La Planche, 204, 205: "The Duchesse of Valentinoys and Duches of Buillon are commaunded, that neither they nor any of theirs shall resort to the courte.... The yong Frenche Quene hath sent to the Duches of Valentinoys, to make accompt of the French King's cabenet and of all his jewels." Throkmorton to Queen, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 158, 159.

[739] Regnier de la Planche, p. 203: "Lequel (Henry) ... avoit entièrement résolu, après avoir achevé ces mariages, et renvoyé les estrangers, de les déchasser arrière de soy, comme une peste de son royaume." So Hist. ecclés., liv. iii. I can scarcely agree with De Thou (ii., 681, liv. xxiii.) in supposing Catharine deceived in the character of the Guises: "Comme elle ne connoissoit pas encore le caractère de ces Princes, elle crut qu'ils se soumettroient en tout à ses volontés," etc. This statement does injustice to the perspicacity of Catharine, who for so many years had been quietly, but none the less carefully, studying these courtiers and all others that figured on the stage of French politics. La Planche, with his usual acumen, makes much of the advantage which this circumstance conferred upon her (ubi supra): "La royne mère, italienne, florentine, et de la race des Medicis, et qui plus est, ayant depuis vingt-deux ans [rather, for twenty-five years] eu tout loisir de considérer les humeurs et façons de toutes ces gens, regardoit ce jeu, et sceut si bien empoigner l'occasion, qu'elle gaigna finalement la partie."

[740] For a full and not uninteresting account of the obsequies, see the pamphlet already referred to: "Le Trespas et l'Ordre des obseques," etc. Paris, 1559. Reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, iii. 307, etc.

[741] Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous François II., 206. "The French King," wrote Throkmorton to his royal mistress, "alredy hathe geven him (the constable) to understande, that the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise shal manage his hole affairs." Throkmorton to the Queen, July 18, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 166.

[742] "Ut re vera sit conestabilis." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, apud Baum, ii. App. 1. The title of constable was for life. Of the tenure of the office, the memoirs of Vieilleville make Henry II. say: "Vous sçavez que les estats de connestable, mareschaux et chancelliers de France sont totalement collez et cousus à la teste de ceulx qui en sont honnorez, que l'on ne peut arracher l'un sans l'autre." Mém., i. 207.

[743] Huguenot and papist agreed in this, if they could agree in nothing else. "Guisiani fratres," said Beza, "ita inter se regnum sunt partiti ut regi nihil præter inane nomen sit relictum." Beza, ubi supra. Cardinal Santa Croce used almost the same expression: "Eo devenerat ut regi solum nomen reliquisse, alia omnia sibi sumsisse videretur." Commentarii, v. 1440.

[744] The poor fellow's wit was recompensed with a public flogging. The incident is told in the recently published Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 37. It need scarcely be said that the Crescent referred to Diana of Poitiers.

[745] "Nam cum ... regem de more salutatum venisset ... Lotharingii suasu ne respicere hominem voluit." Santa Croce, Comment., v. 1439.

[746] La Planche, 206.

[747] In a remark which he was accused of once making to Henry II., "that he was surprised that the king had no child resembling him, save his illegitimate, but acknowledged daughter, Diana, married to the constable's son!" La Planche, 204, 207; De Thou, ii. 685.

[748] Blaise de Montluc, a trusty agent, kept Guise well posted respecting the King of Navarre's words and disposition. "Encores que M. le Connestable luy ayt escript plusieurs lettres, néantmoins il m'a toujours dict qu'il ne se fieroit jamais de luy, ayant bien cogneu que ce semblant d'amitié qu'il luy portoit n'estoit que pour l'attirer de son costé, affin de ruiner ses cousins," etc. Instruction donnée par le seign. de Montluc à M. de la Tour, 22 juillet, 1559, Mém. de Condé, i. 307; Mém. de Guise, 450.

[749] The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another house which the said constable had but lately built, called Écouen, which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).

[750] See the Livre des marchands, Paris, 1565, ascribed to Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic history of this reign (Ed. Panthéon litt., 429, 453, et passim).

[751] De la Planche, 207.

[752] De la Planche, p. 208.

[753] Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.

[754] La Planche, p. 208; Tumulte d'Amboise, ubi supra; Languet, Epist. secretæ, ii. p. 2.

[755] La Planche, p. 212; La Place, 26; De Thou, ii. 684.

[756] "Rex Navarrorum animum in corpore virili gerit muliebrem." J. C. Portanus, Oct. 30, 1559, Languet, Epist. secretæ, ii. 4.

[757] The Bishop of Mende was to become a member of the privy council; D'Escars to be made a knight of the order of St. Michael, and to command fifty men-at-arms. La Planche, 213.

[758] The Guises did not fail, however, to take precautions against a surprise. If Throkmorton was well informed, the duke had "caused two thousand corselets to be laid up in the house of Burbone (Bourbon), nere to the court, to serve in case of innovacion; if that any such matter shuld happen upon the arrivall of the King of Navarre." Desp. of Aug. 8, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 194.

[759] La Planche, ubi supra.

[760] Idem, 213, 214.

[761] Throkmorton to the queen, Aug. 15, 1559, Forbes, i. 202.

[762] "Qu'il n'est point petit compagnon en France."

[763] Instruction of Montluc to La Tour, already cited, Mém. de Guise, 450.

[764] Antoine did, indeed, continue his protestations of his firm intention "not to fail to do the best he could to advance God's true religion and cause." He made secret appointments with the English ambassador, at one time about eleven o'clock at night, near the abbey of St. Denis, at another time in disguise in the cloisters of the Augustinian friars, and had much to say about his satisfaction "that he had so good a colleague" as Elizabeth "in so good a cause." But the diplomatic correspondence does not show a single step which Navarre ever ventured to take in behalf of that "good cause." See Throkmorton's despatch of Aug. 25th, Forbes, State Papers, i. 213, 214.

[765] "Navarrus ad quem jure ipso et more majorum hactenus inviolata pertinebat regni administratio, quamvis a plerisque Ecclesiis salutatus et rogatus ne tam præclaram et divinitus oblatam occasionem negligeret, quamvis summo et aperto ludibrio a Guisianis exceptus, tamen omnibus annuit et suo exemplo confirmavit Christi dictum; Difficile est divitem ingredi in regnum cœlorum." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, apud Baum, ii., App., 1, 2; La Place, 27; La Planche, 213-216; De Thou, ii. 686, 687.

[766] Held Sept. 18th. See a description in Forbes, State Papers, i. 232. Navarre, as one of the six temporal peers, represented the Duke of Burgundy; Guise represented the Duke of Normandy; Nevers, the Duke of Guyenne, etc.

[767] La Planche, 218; De Thou, ii. 688. That the promise of assistance was only given in order to frighten Navarre was patent to all who were cognizant of Philip's projected African campaign.

[768] De Thou (ii. 722, 723) gives an account apparently correct, save in one or two particulars, of these two missions. The slavish letter of Antoine to D'Audoz or D'Odoux, as De Thou writes the name of the second messenger, may be read in the Négociations relatives au règne de François II. (drawn from the papers of the Bishop of Limoges, French ambassador to Philip, and published by the French government, under the editorial care of M. Paris, 1841), pp. 164-166. Compare Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 91.

[769] La Planche, 209.

[770] Throkmorton to Cecil, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 161.

[771] La Planche, 221; Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, Baum, ii., App., 3.

[772] La Planche, 221; Mém. de Castelnau (Eng. tr. of 1724, p. 23), bk. i. c. 5; Declarations of Sept. 4th and Nov. 14, 1559, in the Mémoires de Guise, 450, 451. These declarations were registered by parliament, with the proviso that no house should be razed unless the owners were privy to the crime or guilty of inexcusable negligence. Mémoires de Condé, i, 310.

[773] La Planche, ubi supra.

[774] Arrêt du parlement, of September 6, 1559, in Mémoires de Condé, i. 308, 309.

[775] In August there were nineteen Protestants in Parisian dungeons, sentenced to be executed for heresy, some in one place, some in another. A man and a woman were rescued, on the twenty-first of this month, while on their way to execution at Meaux. Forbes, State Papers, i. 211, 212.

[776] La Planche, 221, 223; Hist. ecclés., i. 144—147, where the account is taken word for word from La Planche; De Thou, ii. 691, 692; Félibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1069; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 4.

[777] "La royne Catherine de Medicis, florentine, nation desireuse de nouvelleté ... haissoit, comme belle mere, la Royne sa fille, qui l'esloignoit des affaires et portoit l'amitié du Roy son fils a MM. de Guise, lesquels ne luy deportoient du gouvernement qu'en ce qu'ils cognoissoient qu'elle ne pouvoit nuire, luy donnant credit en apparence sans effect," Mém. de Tavannes, ii. 260.

[778] La Planche, 211; Hist. ecclés., i. 141, seq.; Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559; Baum, ii., App., 3.

[779]

"Vers l'Éternel, des oppressés le père,
Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropère
Que l'on me fait; et luy feray prière," etc.

[780] "Coppie de lettres envoyées à la Royne Mère par un sien serviteur après la mort du feu Roy Henri deuxième." Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 349, etc. The substance of Villemadon's letter, which is dated August 26th, 1559, is given by La Planche, 211, 212, and, after him, by Hist. ecclés., i. 141, 142.

[781] La Planche, 219; Hist. ecclés., i. 143; cf. Forbes, State Papers, i. 226.

[782] La Planche, 220; Hist. ecclés., ubi supra. It is not at all improbable that those who endeavored to influence Catharine showed too little discretion in their zeal, and needlessly provoked her displeasure by reference to the judgment of God upon her husband. So, at least, thought the judicious Frenchman Languet, who added, with some bitterness, that whoever urged upon them moderation was rewarded for his pains by being called a traitor to the faith. Epist. secretæ, ii. 41.

[783] Or, Trouillard, according to Castelnau, ubi supra.

[784] La Planche, 223-225; Castelnau, liv. i., c. 4; De Thou, ii. 691.

[785] La Planche and De Thou, ubi supra.

[786] Epistolæ secretæ, ii. 30.

[787] See ante, c. viii., p. 275. The authority of the Mémoires de Tavannes (ii. 258)—"Les chambres ardentes sont érigées pour persecuter les Huguenots, et ce d'autant plus que les princes du sang et les frères de Coligny favorisoient la religion nouvelle"—cannot weigh against the positive statement of the preamble of Henry II.'s edict of Paris, Nov. 19, 1549, ante, c. viii., p. 275. Yet Drion, Hist. chron. de l'église prot. de France, i. 63, places the original institution here.

[788] Drion, i. 64; Hist. ecclés., i. 151. On the other hand, Protestant sympathizers sometimes interfered with the course of law in the interest of their brethren in the faith. "Since our arrivall to this towne," wrote Killigrew and Jones from Blois, Nov. 14, 1559, "there were xvii persones taken for the worde's sake, and committed to the sergeaunts to be conveyed to Orleauns, and other places therabouts, to be prosecuted. Notwithstanding, it hathe so happened, as the prisoners in the way betwene this towne and Orleans were rescued, and taken from the sergeaunts who had charge of them, by sixty men on horsebacke, and so were conveyed away." Forbes, State Papers, i. 261. At Rouen, Jan. 29, 1560, a bookbinder was snatched from between two friars, as he was being led in a cart to be burned alive, a cloak thrown over him, and he conveyed out of the hands of his enemies. Unfortunately, the gates having been closed, he was recaptured the same night, and the cruel sentence was executed the next day, with a guard of 300 men-at-arms, for fear of the people. Memorandum of Feb. 8th, State Paper Office.

[789] La Planche, 236, 337; De Thou, ii. 705, 706.

[790] "Comme d'abus." La Place, 19; Crespin, Gal. chrétienne, ii. 304.

[791] La Planche, 209, 210; La Place, 20; Hist. ecclés., i. 138, 139; Crespin, Galerie chrétienne, ii. 305-318; Forbes, State Papers, i. 185. The Mémoires de Condé, i. 217-304, reprint entire a contemporary pamphlet entitled, "La vraye histoire, contenant l'inique jugement et fausse procédure faite contre le fidèle serviteur de Dieu Anne du Bourg, conseillier pour le Roy, en la Cour du Parlement de Paris," etc. (Paris) 1561. It contains in full the interrogatories and replies, Du Bourg's confession, etc., and will amply repay a careful reading. It concludes with a pregnant sentence: "Voila l'issue et fin de l'histoire que j'avoye proposé d'écrire, pour un commencement de beaucoup de troubles, guerres et divisions: car d'injustice procède tout mal." Significant and prophetic words to be written and published the year before the outbreak of the first civil war! The editor of 1743, p. 217, well observes that the execution of Du Bourg may be regarded as one of the chief causes of the conspiracy of Amboise, which broke out soon after, and, consequently, of the troubles agitating France for nearly forty years.

[792] La Planche, 227-235; Hist. ecclés., i. 153-155.

[793] There was no proof that Antoine Minard's murder was wrought by a Protestant hand. An address of Du Bourg, in which he reminded the unrighteous judge of the coming judgment of God, was, after the event, perversely construed as a threat of assassination. A Scotchman, Robert Stuart, a kinsman of the queen, was charged with firing the fatal pistol-shot, but even under the torture revealed nothing. Public opinion was divided, some attributing the catastrophe to Minard's well-known immorality ("d'autant," says La Planche, "qu'il y estoit du tout adonné, et qu'il ne craignoit de séduire toutes les dames et damoiselles qui avoyent des procès devant luy," etc.), others to his equally flagrant injustice, others still to the "Lutherans." La Planche, 233, 234.

[794] Not, as La Planche, 235, and the Hist. ecclés., i. 154, state, Otho Henry, but his successor, Frederick III. Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 35, 36; Languet, Epistolæ sec., ii. 36.

[795] So the English agents, Killigrew and Jones, wrote from Blois, Dec. 27, 1559: "Bourg was not executed, till about the xx of this present: who before his deathe made suche an oration to the Lords of the parliament, as it moved as many of them as were there to shede teares," Forbes, State Papers, i. 290.

[796] La Place, 22, 23; Crespin, Galerie chrétienne, ii. 318-322.

[797] La Place, 23; Crespin, Galerie chrétienne, ii. 322, 323; Hist. ecclés., i. 155, 156; De Thou, ii. 700-703.

[798] La Planche, 236. "Inter quos," writes Jean Crespin in the colophon to the edition of his Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum of 1560, "egregie cordatus Dei Martyr Annas a Burgo supremæ Parisiensis Curiæ senator, xxiij. die mensis Decemb. anni M.D.LIX. admirabilem martyrii coronam accepit." In the preface dated Feb. 26th—two months after Du Bourg's death—he is styled "senator innocentissimus, integerrimus, sanctissimus."

[799] Florimond de Ræmond, Historia de ortu, progressu, et ruina hæsreseon hujus sæculi (Col. 1613), lib. vii, c. vi., p. 411. We have La Planche's testimony to the somewhat extraordinary statement that the judges themselves declared Du Bourg happy in suffering in behalf of so just a cause, and excused themselves for their own conduct by alleging the pressure of the Guises (p. 228). "Stulte fecerunt gubernatores Gallici, quod eum publice supplicio affecerunt," wrote Languet, a few months later; "ejus enim supplicium est una ex non minimis causis horum tumultuum." Epist. sec., ii, 47.

[800] Florimond de Ræmond, ii. 410, 411. Let not the humane reader mistake. Policy, not pity, dictated toleration. The same Florimond de Ræmond, presiding as the oldest counsellor, read an arrêt of the Parliament of Bordeaux, not only ordering the disinterment of a child buried in the cemetery of Ozillac in Saintonge, but that of all the bodies of Huguenots that had been placed in any other cemetery within ten years. Plaintes des églises réformées de France, etc., 1597; apud Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., xi. (1862), 145.

[801] Compare La Planche, 242.

[802] The singular details of these trials, which strikingly illustrate the horrible corruption of the French judiciary in the sixteenth century, are given by La Planche, 242-245; Hist. ecclés., i. 160-164; De Thou, ii. 703, 704; La Place, 24, who remarks upon the singularly different judgments in the five cases, and attributes the variety to the change in the state of the kingdom, and to the diversity of the interrogatories addressed to the prisoners. The sentences against Du Faur and De Foix were subsequently annulled and erased from the records of the parliament, on the ground of irregularity.

[803] De Thou, ii. 699; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire universelle (Maillé, 1616), i. 89.

[804] Recueil gén. des anc. lois franç. (July 23, 1359), xiv. 1; (Dec. 17th), xiv. 14; and (Aug. 5, 1560), xiv. 46.

[805] La Planche, 218. Cf. Histoire du tumulte d'Amboise.

[806] "In Gallia omnia sunt perturbatissima," wrote Languet (Jan. 31, 1560), "et scribitur esse omnino impossibile, ut res diu eo modo consistant." The Cardinal of Lorraine, he added, has dissipated the single church of Paris, but during this very period there have been established more than sixty churches in other parts of the kingdom; nor are the Genevese able to supply so many ministers as they are asked to furnish. Meantime many are defending themselves against the royal officers. The Gascons lately drove off the commissioners sent by the Parliament of Bordeaux to make inquisition for Lutherans. The same has happened in the district of Narbonne, not far from Marseilles. Epistolæ sec., ii., pp. 32, 33.

[807] Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559 (Baum, ii., App., p. 3). Calvin, in his letters to Bullinger and Peter Martyr, both dated May 11, 1560, by the expression "eight months ago," points back to the same period. Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iv. 104-106.

[808] Beza, ubi supra.

[809] Calvin's Letters, iv. 107. So the ministers of Geneva declare before the council: "que pour les troubles arrivés en France, ils n'en sont nullement coupables; qu'il ne doit pas être inconnu au Conseil qu'ils ont détourné, autant qu'ils ont pu, d'aller à Amboise, ceux qu'ils ont sceu avoir quelque dessein d'y aller." Registers, Jan. 28, 1561, apud Gaberel, Histoire de l'égl. de Genève, i., pièces justif., 203.

[810] La Planche, 237.

[811] De Heu was a man of great influence. He had been échevin at Metz, and the chief mover in introducing Protestantism into that city. In 1543 he invited Farel to come thither. Persecution drove him to Switzerland. He returned from exile upon the fall of Metz into the hands of the French, in 1552. When he found that the change had only aggravated the condition of the Protestants, he became prominent in the effort to enlist the sympathy and support of the German princes in behalf of the French reformation. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164.

[812] The whole affair remained involved in impenetrable obscurity until the recent fortunate discovery of the "Procès verbal" (or original minute) "de l'exécution à mort de Caspar de Heu, S^r. de Buy" among the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, 22562, 1re partie, pp. 110-113. It is now printed in the Appendix to "Le Tigre," 103-108, and Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876), 164-168. The very date (which proves to be Sept. 1, 1558) was previously unknown.

[813] "Ce pendant," says the royal lieutenant, in the interesting document just described, "aurions fait faire une fosse dans les fosses du donjon dudit chasteau, soubz les arches du pont de la poterne, comme nous semblant lieu le plus caché et secret d'alentour dudit chasteau, d'autant que l'on ne va souvent ny aysement esdits fossez, et que les herbes y sont communément grandes," etc. Le Tigre, 108.

[814] The author of that terrible invective, "Le Tigre," reminds the cardinal of this crime in one of the finest outbursts of indignant reproach: "N'oys-tu pas crier le sang de celuy que tu fis estrangler dans une chambre du boys de Vincennes? S'il estoit coupable, que [pourquoi] n'a il esté puny publiquement? Où sont les tesmoingts qui l'ont chargé? Pourquoy as-tu voulu en sa mort rompre et froisser toutes les loix de France, si tu pençoys que par les loix, il peut estre condemné?" Also in the versified "Tigre," lines 315-326. It is only just to La Renaudie to add that, according to La Planche, those who knew him best acquitted him of the charge of being much influenced by these and other personal considerations. Hist. de l'estat de France, 238, 316-318.

[815] "Homme, comme l'on dit, de grand esprit, et de diligence presque incroyable." Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, in Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), and Mémoires de Condé, i. 324.

[816] According to De Thou, ii. 762, March 15th. So Davila, 22, and La Place, 33. Calvin (Letter to Sturm, March 23, 1560, Bonnet, iv. 91) says "before March 15." Castelnau, i. 6, says March 10th.

[817] The uniform statement of the contemporary authorities from whom our accounts of the "Tumult" are derived, is to the effect that the blow was to be struck at Blois, but that, on discovering their peril, the Guises hastily removed the court, for greater safety, to the castle of Amboise. And yet the correspondence of the English commissioners discloses the fact that the time of the removal had been decided upon on the 28th of January, several days before the Nantes assembly. See Ranke, Am. ed., 176. "The Frenche King, as it is said, the 5th of February removeth hens towardes Amboise; and will be fifteen dayes in going thither." Despatch of Killigrew and Jones, from Blois, January 28, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 315. In fact, the general outline of the royal progress was indicated by the Spanish ambassador, Perrenot Chantonnay, to Philip II., so far back as December 2, 1559: "La cour, lui avait-il écrit, a le projet de passer le curéme à Amboise, de se rendre en Guyenne au printemps, en passant par Poitiers, Bordeaux, Bayonne, d'aller ensuite à Toulouse, de demeurer l'hiver suivant en Provence et en Languedoc, et d'agir vigoureusement contre les hérétiques." Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 419, from Simancas MSS. The Spanish ambassador saw so much that appalled him in the rapid progress of the Reformation in every part of France, that he feared alike for the North and the South, when the king was not present to check its growth.

[818] La Planche, 238, 239; Hist. ecclés., i. 158, 159; De Thou, ii. 754-762 (where La Renaudie's harangue is given at length); Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Davila, 22; La Place, 33. Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, ubi supra.

[819] De Thou, ii. 762, 763.

[820] Castelnau, 1. i., c. 8; La Planche, 245, 246; Hist. eccl., i. 164; La Place, 33; De Thou, ii. 763. The Histoire du tumulte d'Amboise, apud Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), i. 5, and Mém. de Condé, i. 329, describes Des Avenelles as "prest de se donner à louage au premier offrant;" adding "estant ambitieux et nécessiteux tout ensemble, il pensa avoir trouvé le moyen pour se rendre riche et memorable à jamais." For a favorable view of Des Avenelles's motives, see De Thou, ii. 775. The 12th of February was the date when these tidings reached the Guises, as appears from the speech of Morage or Morague, sent in March to deliver to parliament for registry the edict of amnesty for past religious offences. Mém. de Condé, i. 337. The king, who had started on his hunting tour from Blois on the 5th of February, was, when the news came, between Marchenoir and Montoire (places north and northwest of Blois). The first intimations must, however, have been very vague and general, since, on the 19th of February, the Cardinal of Lorraine wrote to Coignet, French ambassador in Switzerland, directing him to set one or two persons to watch La Renaudie ("à la queue de la Regnaudie pour l'observer de loin, n'en perdre connaissance ni jour, ni nuit"), and seize him the moment he entered the French territories—evidently supposing him to be still in Switzerland and far from Amboise. Letter of Card. Lorraine from Montoire, Feb. 19, 1560, Imp. Lib. Paris, Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 420, 421. It was, doubtless, the receipt of more definite warnings that led the Guises to hasten the termination of the king's pleasure excursion. On the 22d of February, Francis arrived at Amboise, "which was two dayes sooner then was loked for." Throkmorton to the queen, Feb. 27, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 334.

[821] Castelnau, ubi supra.

[822] La Planche and Hist. ecclés., ubi supra. I need not call attention to the gross absurdity into which Jean de Tavannes falls (Mém. ii. 260, 261), when he makes Catharine, through policy and hatred of Mary of Scots and of the Guises, whom the Scottish queen supported, favor the malcontents! Can the younger Tavannes have been misled by the hypocritical representations with which she once and again attempted ineffectually to deceive the reformers when they appealed to her to put an end to the persecutions?

[823] See the synopsis of Coligny's speech in La Planche, 247, 248. Tavannes ascribes Coligny's impunity throughout this reign to Catharine's interposition, revealing the plans of his enemies, etc. (Mémoires, ii. 264). It was much more probably owing to his powerful family alliances, and particularly to the fear of throwing the weight of the enormous influence of his uncle, Constable Montmorency, into the opposite scale. Yet it must be confessed that Catharine displayed for the admiral, on more than one occasion, that respect which integrity always exacts from vice, and which is most likely to be manifested in the hour of danger. Early in this reign the court faction had endeavored to sow discord between the two principal men of the Protestant party, by intimating to Coligny that Condé was seeking to obtain the governorship of Picardy, which the former held. The calumny, however, failed of its object.

[824] Recueil des anc. lois franç, xiv. 22-24; La Planche, 248; La Place, 37; Hist. ecclés., i. 166, 167; De Thou, ii. 764; Forbes, i. 877. A Latin version, but out of its chronological position in Languet, Epist. sec., ii. p. 15. The date of the publication of this important document at Paris is indicated in a letter of Hubert Languet: "Certum est undecima Martii Lutetiæ propositum esse edictum, in quo Rex condonat suis subditis quidquid hactenus peccatum est in religione." Epist. sec., ii. 44.

[825] "Car aucuns conseillers disoyent que c'estoit un attrape-minault." La Planche, 248.

[826] Beza to Bullinger, June 26, 1560; in Baum, ii., App. 13.

[827] Throkmorton's Correspondence in Forbes, State Papers, i. 353, 354, 374-378.

[828] Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, ubi supra; La Planche, 251, 252; La Place, 34, 35; De Thou, ii. 767, 768; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 8; Throkmorton to the queen, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 376, 377. Vieilleville, if we may credit Carloix, foresaw the impossibility of keeping his honor in this mission, and refused to take it. Mém. de Vielleville, ii. 420, etc.

[829] La Planche, ubi supra.

[830] La Planche, 254; La Place, 35; De Thou, ii. 769; Davila, 25. Sir Nich. Throkmorton, March 21, 1560, Forbes, State Papers, i. 380. M. Mignet has shown (Journal des Savants, 1857, 477, note) that the death of La Renaudie cannot have taken place before the evening of the 19th, or the morning of the 20th.

[831] Even in their letter to their sister, the Queen Dowager of Scotland (April 9, 1560), the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise had the assurance to speak of the affair of Amboise as "a conspiracy made to kill the king, in which we were not forgotten." Forbes, State Papers, i. 400.

[832] Cf. the commission in the Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), 19-24; La Planche, 252, 253; De Thou, ii. 768; Davila, 24.; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. ii., c. 15.

[833] Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv., 24-26; La Planche, 253, 254; Languet, ii. 48, 49; De Thou, ii. 769. It need scarcely be added that the aim of the insurgents is misrepresented to be, "under veil of religion, to ravage all the rich cities and houses of the kingdom."

[834] La Planche, 257, 262.

[835] "The 17th of this present there were twenty-two of these rebellis drowned in sacks, and the 18th of the same at night twenty-five more. Among all these which be taken, there be eighteen of the bravest captains of France." Throkmorton to the queen, March 21st, Forbes, i. 378.

[836] La Planche, 257, 263.

[837] Throkmorton, ubi supra.

[838] La Planche, 263, 265; La Place, 34, 35; Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, apud Mém. de Condé, i. 327; D'Aubigné, ubi supra.

[839] Ibid., 254-258; La Place, 35; Hist. du tumulte, ubi supra; Throkmorton, ubi supra, i. 380.

[840] La Planche, 258.

[841] Mémoires de Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné (Ed. Panthéon lit.), 472.

[842] La Planche, 267.

[843] I have followed in the text the account of La Planche. La Place, 36, represents Condé as voluntarily making his appearance and declaration before the king and the princes and knights that were present, on hearing that the ambassadors of several foreign princes had named him in their despatches as the author of the enterprise.

[844] La Planche, 268, 269; La Place, 36; Hist. ecclés., i. 171; De Thou, ii. 773, 774; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 11. The Cardinal of Lorraine, however, was deeply mortified and vexed. "El cardenal estava presente teniendo los ojos en tierra, sin hablar palabra, mostrando solamente descontentemiento de lo que passava." MSS. Simancas, apud Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1857, 479.

[845] The accusation referred to occurs, for instance, in a private diary, part of which has recently come to light, begun by one Friar Symeon Vinot, Sept. 10, 1563. He notes: "L'an 1561 "—an error for 1560—"commença à, s'elever en France la secte des Hugguenotz, ou (a mieulx dire) Eygnossen, pour ce qu'il [ils] vouloient fayre les villes franches, et s'allier ensemble, comme les villes des Schwysses, qu'on dict en allemand Egnossen, cest a dire Aliez," etc. Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. fr., xxv. (1876) 380.

[846] Histoire du parlement de Bordeaux, depuis sa création jusqu'à sa suppression (1541-1790), œuvre posthume de C. B. F. Boscheron des Portes, président honoraire de la cour d'appel de Bordeaux, etc. (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 130.

[847] Reaching Paris early in May, 1560, Hubert Languet wrote that suspicion was everywhere rife; men of any standing scarcely dared to converse with each other; some great calamity seemed on the point of breaking forth. The king's ministers evidently feared the great cities; so the court proceeded from one provincial town to another. Disturbances in Rouen and Dieppe had frightened the Guises away from Normandy, whither they had intended leading their royal nephew. Letter from Paris, May 15th, Epistolæ secr., ii. 50.

[848] "En ce temps (Mars, 1560) furent appellés Huguenots." Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 36.

[849] Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, who, in an appendix, has very fully discussed the whole matter (i. 608-625). There is some force in the objection that has been urged against this view, that, were it correct, Beza, himself a resident of Geneva, could not have been ignorant of the derivation, and would not, in the Histoire ecclésiastique, prepared under his supervision, if not by him, have given his sanction to another explanation.

[850] La Planche, 262; Hist. ecclés., i. 169, 170; De Thou, ii. (liv. xxiv.) 766. This is also Étienne Pasquier's view, who is positive that he heard the Protestants called Huguenots by some friends of his from Tours full eight or nine years before the tumult of Amboise; that is, about 1551 or 1552: "Car je vous puis dire que huict ou neuf ans auparavant l'entreprise d'Amboise je les avois ainsi ouy appeller par quelques miens amis Tourengeaux." Recherches de France, 770. This is certainly pretty strong proof.

[851] La Place, 34; Davila, i. 20; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 96. See also Pasquier, ubi supra.

[852] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 7. A somewhat similar reason had, in Poitou, caused them, for a time, to be called Fribours, the designation casually given to a counterfeit coin of debased metal. Pasquier, 770.

[853] Advertissement au Peuple de France, apud Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), 7. Also in the Complainte au Peuple François, ibid., p. 10. Both of these papers were published immediately after the Tumulte d'Amboise. The eminent Pierre Jurieu—"le Goliath des Protestants"—tells us that, having at one time accepted the derivation from "eidgenossen" as the most plausible, he subsequently returned to that which connects the word Huguenot with Hugues or Hugh Capet. The nickname confessedly arose, so far as France was concerned, first in Touraine, and became general at the time of the tumult of Amboise, nearly thirty years after the reformation of Geneva. "Qui est-ce qui auroit transporté en Touraine ce nom trente ans après sa naissance, de Genève où il n'avoit jamais esté cognu?" Histoire du calvinisme et celle du papisme, etc. Rotterdam, 1683, i. 424, 425.

[854] J. de Serres, i. 67; Pasquier, 771: "Mot qui en peu de temps s'espandit par toute la France."

[855] La Planche, 270. At Amboise, too, so soon as the court had departed, the prisons were broken open, and the prisoners—both those confined for religion and for insurrection—released. The gallows in various parts of the place were torn down, and the ghastly decorations of the castle, in the way of heads and mutilated members, disappeared. Languet, letter of May 15th, Epist. secr., ii. 51.

[856] M. Archinard, conservator of the archives of the Venerable Company of Pastors of Geneva, has compiled from the records a list of 121 pastors sent by the Church of Geneva to the Reformed Churches of France within eleven years—1555 to 1566. Many others have, doubtless, escaped notice. Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 72-76. Cf. also Ib., ix. 294 seq., for an incomplete list of Protestant pastors in France, probably in 1567, from an old MS. in the Genevan library.

[857] The high moral and intellectual qualifications of the Protestant ministers were eulogized by the Bishop of Valence, Montluc, in his speech before the king at Fontainebleau, to which I shall soon have occasion to refer again. "The doctrine, sire," he said, "which interests your subjects, was sown for thirty years; not in one, or two, or three days. It was introduced by three or four hundred ministers, diligent and practised in letters; men of great modesty, gravity, and appearance of sanctity; professing to detest every vice, and, particularly, avarice; fearless of losing their lives in confirmation of their preaching; who always had Jesus Christ upon their lips—a name so sweet that it gives an entrance into ears the most carefully closed, and easily glides into the heart of the most hardened." "Harangue de l'Evesque de Vallence," apud Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), i. 290; Mém. de Condé, i. 558; La Place, 55. The eloquent Bishop of Valence must be regarded as a better authority than those persons who, according to Castelnau, accused the Calvinist ministers of Geneva of "having more zeal and ignorance than religion." Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 3.

[858] Calvin, in a letter sent by François de Saint Paul, a minister whom he induced to accept the urgent call of the church of Montélimart, dissuaded that church from this step which was already contemplated. Better is it, said he, to increase the flock, and to gather in the scattered sheep, meanwhile keeping quiet yourselves. "At least, while you hold your assemblies peaceably from house to house, the rage of the wicked will not so soon be enkindled against you, and you will render to God what He requires, namely, the glorifying of His name in a pure manner, and the keeping of yourselves unpolluted by all superstitious observances, until it please Him to open a wider door." Lettres françaises (Bonnet), ii. 335, 336. The author of the Histoire ecclés. des églises réf., i. 138, expresses a belief that had such wise counsels been followed, incomparably the greater part of the district would have embraced the Reformation.

[859] La Planche, 284-286.

[860] Letter of Francis II. to Gaspard de Saulx, Seign. de Tavannes, April 12, 1560, apud Négotiations relatives au règne de François II., etc. (Collection de documents inédits), 341-343.

[861] With a label attached to their necks bearing this inscription: "Voicy les chefs des rebelles."

[862] La Planche, 286-289.

[863] Letter of the Vte. de Joyeuse to the king, April 26, 1560, apud Nég. sous François II., 361-363.

[864] La Planche, 293.

[865] Hence the festival of Corpus Christi witnessed in some places serious riots, especially in Rouen, where a number of citizens of the reformed faith refused to join in the otherwise universal practice of spreading tapestry on the front of their houses when the host was carried by. Houses were broken into, at the instigation of the priests, and near a score of persons killed. Languet, Paris, June 16th, Epist. sec., ii. 59, 60.

[866] La Planche, 294; Hist. ecclés., i. 194; Floquet, Hist. du parl. de Normandie, ii. 284, 288, 294, 302-306, etc. At Dieppe the Huguenots had gone so far as to erect, with the pecuniary assistance afforded by Admiral Coligny, an elegant and spacious "temple," as the Protestant place of worship was styled. Vieilleville, much to his regret, felt compelled to demolish it (Aug., 1560), for it stood in the very heart of the city. I quote a part of his secretary's appreciative description: "C'estoit ung fort brave édifice, ressemblant au théatre de Rome qu'on appelle Collisée, ou aux arênes de Nysmes. On fut trois jours à le verser par terre, et ne partismes de Dieppe que n'en veissions la fin." Mém. de Vieilleville, ii. 448, etc.; Floquet, ii. 318-336.

[867] De Félice, liv. i., c. 12 (Am. ed., p. 111).

[868] See La Planche, 312, 313, and the "Histoire des cinq rois" (Recueil des choses mém), 1598, p. 99, for the punishment of the possessor of a copy of a virulent pamphlet against the cardinal, entitled Le Tigre (see the note at the end of this chapter); and Négociations sous François II., 456, for a letter from court ordering search to be made for the author and publisher of the "Complaincte des fidèles de France contre leurs adversaires les papistes." "En ung lundy après Pasques, 15^e du moys, fut affiché devant S. Hilaire un papier estant imprimé d'autre impression de Paris, et y avoit à l'intitulation: Les Estats opprimez par la tyrannie de MM. de Guise au roy salut." Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 37. The piece referred to is inserted in the Mémoires de Condé, i. 405-410.

[869] La Planche, 299-302. The remonstrance, signed Theophilus, which they addressed her, insisted on the ill-success of the persecutions to which for forty years they had been subjected; for one killed, two hundred had joined their assemblies; for ten thousand open adherents, the Reformation had one hundred thousand secret upholders. The Edict of Forgiveness answered no good purpose: "c'estoit bien peu d'oster pour un instant la douleur d'une maladie, si quant et quant la cause et la racine n'en estoit ostée."

[870] La Place, 41-45; La Planche, 316, 317; Mém. de Castelnau, l. ii., c. 7; De Thou, ii., liv. xxv. 788-791. I confess, however, that the careful perusal of La Planche's bold speech has nearly convinced me that the ascription of the anonymous "Hist. de l'estat de Fr. sous François II." to his pen is erroneous. I shall not insist upon the fact that the description of La Planche as "homme politique plustost que religieux" is inappropriate to the author of this history. But I can scarcely conceive of La Planche correcting errors in his own speech, and not only expressing an utter dissent from the account which he himself gave the queen of the motives that led La Renaudie to engage in the enterprise that had for its object the overthrow of the Guises, but even accusing himself of falling into a grave mistake with regard to the importance of the differences of creed between the Protestants and the Roman Church: "s'abusant en ce qu'il meit en avant des différends de la religion." La Planche had suggested a conference of theologians—ostensibly to make a faithful translation of the Bible, in reality to compare differences—and had expressed the opinion that there would be found less discord than there appeared to be. The condemnation of this view certainly does not mark a man of political rather than religious tendencies! I fear that we must look elsewhere for the author of this excellent history.

[871] It has been ascribed to the virtuous and tolerant Chancellor L'Hospital, who, it is said, drew it up in order to defeat the project of the Guises to introduce the Spanish Inquisition. (La Planche, 305; cf. also De Thou, ii. 781.) But the edict was published before the appointment of L'Hospital, and while Morvilliers, a creature of the Guises, provisionally held the seals after Chancellor Olivier's death; and the spiritual jurisdiction it established differed little in principle from an inquisition. In fact, three of the French prelates, the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Châtillon, had, as we have seen, been constituted a board of inquisitors of the faith; and, soon after the publication of the Edict of Romorantin, the Cardinal of Tournon was set over them as inquisitor-general. The subject has been well discussed by Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 338-342. The Duc d'Aumale, in his usually accurate Histoire des Princes de Condé (i. 113), repeats the blunder of La Planche and De Thou.

[872] Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv. 31-33; La Planche, 305, 306; La Place, 46, 47. It is, of course, "an edict holily conceived and promulgated," in the estimation of Florimond de Ræmond, v. 113. The only redeeming feature I can find in it is the article by which malicious informers made themselves liable to all the penalties they had sought to inflict on others.

[873] La Place, 36 (who states that the burning of Du Bourg was an occasion of deep remorse in Olivier's last hours); La Planche, 266; J. de Serres, De statu rel. et reip., i., fol. 35; De Thou, ii. (liv. xxiv.), 775; Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, ubi supra.

[874] La Planche, 305.

[875] If we may credit that professed panegyrist, Scævola de St. Marthe, L'Hospital was of an august appearance, of a dignified and tranquil countenance, and, if his intellectual constitution had a philosophic stamp, his features bore a not less remarkable resemblance to the head of the Stagirite as delineated on ancient medals. Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum qui nostra patrumque memoria floruerunt (Ienæ, 1696), lib. ii., p. 95.

[876] This remarkable statement is made by Agrippa d'Aubigné, Mémoires, 478 (Ed. Panthéon Lit.). He tells us that he had inherited from his father, himself one of the conspirators, the original papers of the enterprise of Amboise. The suggestion was made by a confidant, that the possession of the proof of L'Hospital's complicity would certainly secure him 10,000 crowns, either from the chancellor or from his enemies; whereupon the youth threw all the papers into the fire lest he might in an hour of weakness succumb to the temptation. In his Hist. universelle, i. 95, D'Aubigné makes the same assertion with great positiveness: "L'Hospital, homme de grand estime, luy succeda, quoyqu'il eust esté des conjurez pour le faict d'Amboise. Ce que je maintiens contre tout ce qui en a esté escrit, pource que l'original de l'entreprise fut consigné entre les mains de mon père, où estoit son seing tout du long entre celuy de Dandelot et d'un Spifame: chose que j'ai faict voir a plusieurs personnes de marque."

[877] La Planche, 305; La Place, 38; De Thou, ii. 776; Davila, p. 29. I cannot refrain from inserting La Planche's worthy estimate of his course and its results: "Car pour certain, encores que s'il eust prins un court chemin pour s'opposer virilement au mal, il seroit plus à louer, et Dieu, peut-estre, eust bény sa Constance, si est-ce qu'autant qu'on en peut juger, luy seul, par ses modérés déportemens a esté l'instrument duquel Dieu s'est servy pour retenir plusieurs flots impétueux, où fussent submergés tous les François." Ubi supra.

[878] Throkmorton to Cecil, June 24, 1560, State Paper Office; printed in Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 32, 33.

[879] La Planche, 338-343.

[880] Ibid., 315; De Thou, ii. 787, 788.

[881] The long address delivered to the two brothers at Nérac, and reproduced verbatim by La Planche (318-338), is a very complete summary of the views of the Huguenots at this juncture.

[882] Letter of Cardinal Lorraine to the Bishop of Limoges, French ambassador to Philip the Second, July 28, 1560. The council "we hold to be the sole and only remedy for our ills," is the minister's language. Although the state of affairs was better than it had been, yet "so many persons were imbued with these opinions, that it was not possible to find out on whom reliance could be placed." Négociations sous François II., 442-444.

[883] Ibid., ubi supra; La Planche, 349; De Thou, ii. 782.

[884] La Planche, ubi supra. An assembly of notables was, as the term imports, a body consisting, not of representatives of the three orders, regularly summoned under the forms observed in the holding of the States General, but of the most prominent men of the kingdom, arbitrarily selected and invited by the crown to act as its advisers on some extraordinary emergency. "Telles assemblées," says Agrippa d'Aubigné, "ont esté appelées petits estats." Hist. univ., i. 96.

[885] "This house is both beautiful and larger than any I had before seen in France or England. I may resemble the state thereof to the honour of Hampton Court, which as it passeth Fontainebleau with the great hall and chambers, so is it inferior in outward beauty and uniformity," etc. The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 67.

[886] Charles Maximilian, now a boy of ten, was the successor of Francis, known as Charles the Ninth. Edward Alexander, Duke of Alençon, had his name changed in 1565 to Henry, and became Duke of Anjou. He was at this time not quite nine years of age. He was subsequently king, under the title of Henry the Third. Hercules became Francis of Alençon in 1565, and was the only one of the brothers that never ascended the throne. He was now a little over six years old.

[887] La Place, 53; La Planche, 350, 351; De Thou, ii. 706; Mém. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8; Davila, 29. Minor discrepancies between these accounts need not be noted.

[888] "As if," says Calvin to Bullinger, "finding himself at his wits' end, he had called in a consultation of state doctors." (Bonnet, iv. 135.)

[889] "Deux requestes de la part des Fideles de France, qui desirent viure selon la reformation de l'Euangile, donnees pour presenter au Conseil tenu à Fontainebleau au mois d'Aoust, M.D.LX." Recueil des choses mémorables faites et passees pour le faict de la Religion et estat de ce Royaume, depuis la mort du Roy Henry II. iusques au commencement des troubles. Sine loco, 1565, vol. i. 614-619.

[890] La Place, 54, 55, and La Planche, 351, are, as usual in this reign, our best authorities in reference to Coligny's address and the presentation of the petition; see also Hist. ecclés., i. 173, 174; De Thou, ii. 797; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 8; Davila, bk. ii., p. 30. La Place and Jean de Serres, De statu, etc., i. 96 (who are followed by De Thou, etc.), seem to be more correct in assigning the address to the second session, than La Planche, the Hist. ecclés., etc., who place it at the very commencement of the first. Calvin, in a letter to Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 135) describes the scene in the same manner as La Place. Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), 27, etc.; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 213, etc. Mr. Browning (Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 29) erroneously attributes the authorship of the last mentioned work to Francis Hotman (who died in 1590); whereas the author wrote after Maimbourg and Varillas, whose statements he controverts. (Pref., p. ii., and p. 86.) Hotman, as noticed elsewhere, was the author of the preceding and much more authentic book.

[891] Not, however, precisely in the ranks of the clergy. Marillac was a layman, whose success in negotiation had been rewarded with the archiepiscopal see of Vienne. In his youth he had been suspected of composing an apology for a "Lutheran" burned at the stake in Paris; and he died broken-hearted, seeing the ruin to which both church and state were tending, two months after the Assembly of Fontainebleau. La Place, 72, 73; La Planche, 360, 361. Neither was Montluc of Valence a clergyman. Paris, Négotiations sous François II., Notice, p. xxxvii.

[892] It was not unfrequently recommended, as a species of panacea for the evils in the church, that the bishops should all be sent off to their dioceses. An edict to that effect had recently been promulgated, and it was supposed that the parish curates would soon be directed to follow their example. (Languet, ii. 68.) "What else will result from this I know not," quietly adds the sensible diplomatist, "but that they will betray their ignorance and baseness, and that the contempt and hatred already entertained for them by the people will be augmented." Elsewhere, in expressing the same view of the absurdity of the order, he gives this unflattering description of the prelates: "cum plerique sint plane indocti et præterea luxu, libidinibus, et aliis sceleribus perditissimi," etc. (Ibid., ii. 73.)

[893] "Autant de deux escus que les banquiers avoyent envoyés à Rome, autant de curés nous avoyent-ils renvoyés," adds Montluc. La Place, 56.

[894] The harangue of Montluc is contained word for word, though with erroneous date, in the Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), pp. 286-305; also in La Place, 55-58; Mém. de Condé, 557-562. Summary in De Thou, ii. 797-800; Jean de Serres, De statu rel. et reip. (1571), i. 99-106.

[895] "Et qu'en tout événement nous ne voulons périr pour luy complaire." La Place, 60; La Planche, 354.

[896] "Et sur ce, ne fault espargner les Italiens qui occupent la troisiesme partie des bénéfices du royaume, ont pensions infinies, succent nostre sang comme sangsues," etc. La Place and La Planche, ubi supra.

[897] La Place, 64; La Planche, 359. Both historians give the speech verbatim. J. de Serres, i. 106-126; Letter of Calvin to Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560, ubi supra; Hist. ecclés., i. 174-178. Would that these words of wholesome advice and sound philosophy had not been left unheeded by royalty and noblesse! The course of politic humanity to which they pointed might have saved a monarch his head, the noblesse countless lives and the loss of large possessions, and France a bloody revolution.

[898] La Planche, 361; La Place, 66; De Thou, ii. 802; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii. c. 8; Hist. ecclés., i. 178; Jean de Serres, i. 127.

[899] La Planche, 361, 362; La Place, 67. The latter and J. de Serres, i. 129, are certainly wrong in attributing this passionate menace to the Cardinal of Lorraine. De Thou, ii. 802; Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8.

[900] La Planche, etc., ubi supra. Calvin to Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 136).

[901] La Planche, 362, 363; La Place, 67; J. de Serres, De statu rel. et reip., i. 128-131; De Thou, ii. 802, 803. After seeing the head instigator of persecution, still gory with the blood of the recent slaughter, assume with such effrontery the language of pity and toleration, we may be prepared for his duplicity at the interview of Saverne. The compiler of the Hist. ecclés. (i, 179) explains the consent of the Guises to the convocation of the estates by supposing them to have hoped by this measure not merely to take away the excuse of their opponents, but, by obtaining a majority, to secure the declaration of Navarre and Condé as rebels, whether they came or declined to appear. Calvin (letter to Bullinger, ubi supra, p. 137) gives the same view. So does Barbaro: "Forse non tanto per volontà che s'avesse d'esseguirle quanto per adomentare gli risvegliati, et guadagnar, come si fece." The Pope and Philip violently opposed the plan "perchè nè l'uno nè l'altro sapeva il secreto." "By the plan of the council, ... they succeeded in feeding with vain hopes (dar pasto) those who sought to make innovations in the faith." Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 524, etc.

[902] La Planche, 363, 364; La Place, 68; De Thou, ii. 803 (liv. xxv). Cf. the edict in full apud Négociations sous François II., 486-490; also a letter of Francis in which he explains his course to Philip II., ib. 490-497.

[903] The cardinal had, however, made a somewhat similar discourse, just about six months before, to Throkmorton, much to the good knight's disgust. He had expressed a recognition of the faults prevalent in the church, and pretended to be desirous of reforming it in an orderly manner. "I am not so ignorant," he said, "nor so led with errors that reigne, as the world judgeth." He declared himself in favor of a general council, and spoke with satisfaction of an edict just despatched to Scotland, "to surcease the punishment of men for religion." "And of this purpose," adds the ambassador with pardonable sarcasm, "he made suche an oration as it were long to write, evon as thoughe he had bene hired by the Protestants to defend their cause earnestly!" Despatch to the queen, Feb. 27, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 337, 338.

[904] Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse accusation de M. le prince de Condé, Mémoires de Condé, ii. 373; Languet, ii. 66.

[905] Throkmorton to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, State Paper Office; La Place, 68, 69; La Planche, 345, 346; De Thou, ii. 804-806; Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 7.

[906] La Planche, p. 375. Instructions to M. de Crussol, going by order of the king to the King of Navarre, Aug. 30, 1560, apud Négoc. sous François II., pp. 482-486. The beginning of this paper, directing Crussol to express regret that Navarre had not come to the council of Fontainebleau, and to announce the result of its recommendations, is sufficiently conciliatory. If, however, Navarre should hesitate to obey the summons, the agent was bidden to frighten him into compliance. On the first show of resistance, Francis would collect his own troops, consisting of thirty thousand or forty thousand foot, and seven hundred or eight hundred horse, expected levies of ten thousand Swiss, and six thousand or seven thousand German lansquenets. Philip had assured him of the assistance of all his forces, foot and horse, both from the side of Netherlands and of Spain. The Dukes of Lorraine, Savoy, and Ferrara would bring fourteen thousand to sixteen thousand foot and one thousand five hundred horse. The king's arrangements were complete, and he was resolved to make an example. The arrest of La Sague was, however, not to be mentioned. Letter of Francis to the King of Navarre, Aug. 30, in Recueil des choses mém. (1565), 75, 76, and Mém. de Condé, i. 573.

[907] See the message in cipher appended to a despatch to the French ambassador at Madrid, Aug. 31, 1560, apud Nég. sous François II., pp. 490-497. The discovery is said to have been made within five or six days. Condé is implicated. Against Navarre there is as yet no proof. The Queen of England, is suspected of complicity, despite the recent treaty (of July 23d, by which Mary, Queen of Scots, renounced her claims upon the crown of England). The affright of the Guises may be judged from the circumstance that two copies of the despatch were forwarded—one by Guyenne, the other by Languedoc—so that at least one might reach its destination.

[908] Thomas Shakerly, the Cardinal of Ferrara's organist, sent him budgets of news not less regularly than the secretary of the Duke of Savoy's ambassador at Venice supplied the English agent copies of all the most important letters his master received. See the interesting letter of John Shers to Cecil, Venice, Jan. 18, 1561, State Paper Office.

[909] Throkmorton to queen, Poissy, Oct. 10, 1560, State Paper Office.

[910] In a despatch to his ambassador at Madrid, Sept. 18, 1560 (Négoc. sous François II., 523, etc.), Francis states that 1,000 or 1,200 armed soldiers had been posted in sixty-six houses, ready to sally out by night, capture the city, and open the gates to 2,000 men waiting outside. Of course, according to the king or his ministers, the object was plunder, and the enterprise a fair specimen of Huguenot sanctity.

[911] La Planche, 365-368; La Place, 69; Nég. sous François II., ubi supra; Mém. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 9; Languet, ii. 70; De Thou, ii. 806. Calvin, in a letter to Beza (Sept. 10, 1560), seems to allude, though not by name, to Maligny, and to condemn his rashness; but the passage is purposely too obscure to throw much light upon the matter. Bonnet, iv. 126, etc.

[912] Letter of the king, apud Négoc. sous François II., 580, 581.

[913] The curious reader may task his ingenuity in deciphering the somewhat remarkable spelling in which the count quaintly relates the occurrence in question: "Aytant o Pont-Sainct-Esperit, je trouvis entre les mains de Rocart, capitayne de là, deux charges de mulles de livres de Genaive, fort bien reliez: toutefoys cela ne les en carda que je ne les fice toux brûler, comensent le prumier à les maytre o fu; de coe je fu bien suivi de monsieur de Joyeuse, vous asseurent qu' ill i en avoet beocoup de la copagnie qu'il les playnoet fort, les estiment plus de mille aycus: pour sayte foys-là je ne les voullus croere." Letter of Villars to the constable, Oct. 12, 1560, apud Négoc. sous François II., p. 655.

[914] On Sunday, the 28th of July, a gathering composed almost entirely of women was discovered. Nothing daunted, 1,200 persons met the next night, with torches and open doors, in the large school-rooms, where their pastor, Maupeau, preached an appropriate sermon from Rev. vi. 9, on "the souls of them that were slain for the word of God." Soon the same place was resorted to by day. Summoned before the magistrates, judge, and consuls, the Huguenots declared their loyalty, but said that they had no idea that the king wanted to dictate to the conscience, which belongs to God. Presently the church of St. Michael was seized. Then the Cardinal of Lorraine (Oct. 14th) wrote to the bishop, telling him to call upon M. de Villars for aid in suppressing assemblies and the preaching. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 207-210.

[915] They are Nismes, Montpellier, Montagnac, Annonay, Castres, Marsillargues, Aigues Mortes, Pézénas, Gignac, Sommières, St. Jean de Gardonnenches, Anduze, Vauvers (Viviers?), Uzès, and Privas.

[916] Sommaire des instructions données à Pignan envoyé au roy par Honorat de Savoye, Cte. de Villars, Oct. 15, 1560, apud Négoc. sous François II., 659-661.

[917] On hearing of the seizure of Aigues Mortes by treachery. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 211.

[918] Letters of De Villars to the Guises, Oct. 27 and 29, 1560. Nég. sous François II., 671.

[919] Letter of the king to the Cte. de Villars, November 9, 1560. Ib., p. 673.

[920] H. Barnsleye to Cecil, August 28, 1560, State Paper Office.

[921] I know of no more scathing exposure of the morals of the clergy than that given by François Grimaudet, the representative of the Tiers État of Anjou, and inserted verbatim in La Planche, 389-396. It was honored by being made the object of a special censure of the Sorbonne!

[922] La Planche, 387-397; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 199.

[923] Remonstrances, plaintes, et doléançes de l'estat ecclés., MSS. Arch. du départ, de la Vienne, Hist. des Protestants et des églises réf. du Poitou, par A. Lièvre (Poitiers, 1856), i. 84, 85.

[924] Geneva MS., apud Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 110.

[925] See the interesting passage in the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 204.

[926] "As touching the occurrents of this Court, it may please your Majesty to be advertised, that the King of Navarre being on his way to this Court, hath had letters, as I am informed, written unto him, of great good opinion conceived of him by this King, with all other kind of courtesies, to cause him to repair thither." Despatch of Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, Orleans, Nov. 17, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 138.

[927] The portrait of this personage is painted in no flattering colors by Calvin in two letters, to Sulcer, Oct. 1, 1560 ("whose mind is more lumpish than a log, unless when it is a little quickened by wine"), and to Bullinger, of the same date ("one whom you might easily mistake for a cask or a flagon, so little has he the shape of a human being"). Bonnet, Eng. tr., iv. 131-135.

[928] The despatches that passed between the court and the French ambassador in Spain reveal the general alarm. Oct. 4th, Cardinal Lorraine expects Navarre and Condé within the first half of the month, "dont je suis fort ayse." Oct. 5th, Francis writes that, within two days, he has heard that they intend carrying out their enterprise. Oct. 9th, the secretary of state complains of "fresh alarm daily." Négoc. sous François II., 604-607, 610, 650. Others were, in the end, as much astounded as the Guises at Navarre's pacific attitude. Throkmorton, writing to the privy council that this king was looked for shortly at Orleans, adds that all bruits of trouble by him were clean appeased, which caused great marvel. Despatch to privy council, Paris, Oct. 24, 1560, State Paper Office.

[929] Letter of Bishop of Limoges to the Cardinal of Lorraine, Sept. 26, 1560, apud Négotiations sous François II., 562: "Je vous supplie de croire que le roy et mes seigneurs de son conseil [i. e., Francis and the Guises] ne feront rien pour extirper un tel mal qui ne soit icy [in Spain] bien pris et receu à l'endroict de qui que ce soit [sc. Navarre and Condé]: tant ceux-cy craignent qu'il y ait changement en notre religion et estat." Cf. also pp. 551, 552.

[930] Négociations sous François II., 553, 554.

[931] Instructions of the king to M. de La Burie, commanding in Guyenne, Sept., 1560, apud Négociations sous François II., 578-580; also Ib., 644.

[932] La Planche, 377.

[933] La Planche, 375; Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 120-123, whose account of this episode in the reformer's life is well written and interesting. For the general facts above stated the best authority is, as usual, La Planche, 373-377; see also La Place, 71; De Thou, ii. 807, 827; Hist. ecclés., i. 205; Castelnau, l. ii., c. 9; Davila, 34, 35; Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), iv., pp. 132, 137, 143, 147-151.

[934] Calvin to Bullinger, Dec. 4th, and to Sulcer, Dec. 11, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 149 and 151).

[935] La Planche, 377; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. ii., c. 19.

[936] La Planche, ubi supra.

[937] Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse accusation de M. le prince de Condé, in the Recueil des choses mém. (1565), 722-754, and Mémoires de Condé, ii. 373-395—a contemporaneous account by one who speaks of himself as "ayant assisté à la conduicte de la plus grand part de tout le négoce."

[938] "Nevertheless, upon his coming, being accompanied with his brethren, the Cardinal of Bourbon and Prince of Condé, after they have [had] done their reverence to the king and queens, the Prince of Condé was brought before the council, who committed him forthwith prisoner to the guard of Messrs. de Bresy and Chauveney, two captains of the guard, and their companies of two hundred archers." Despatch of Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, ubi supra.

[939] "The King of Navarre goeth at liberty, but as it were a prisoner." Despatch of Sir Nich. Throkmorton, ubi supra. "Tanquam captivus." Same to Lord Robert Dudley, same date, State Paper Office.

[940] La Place, 73; La Planche, 380, 381; Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 10.

[941] La Place, 74: La Planche and Castelnau, ubi supra; Sommaire récit, ubi supra. "Madame de Roy (Roye), the Admiral of France his sister ... is taken and constituted prisoner." Despatch of Sir Nich. Throkmorton, Orleans, November 17, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 139.

[942] "The Dutchess of Ferrara, mother to the Duke that now is, according to that I wrote heretofore to your Majesty, is arrived at this Court, the 7th of this present, and was received by the King of Navarre, the French King's brethren, and all the great Princes of this Court." Ubi supra.

[943] Brantôme, Femmes illustres, Renée de France; La Planche, 381; La Place, 74; "que si elle y eust esté, elle l'eust empesché, et que ceste playe saigneroit long temps après, d'autant que jamais homme ne s'estoit attaché au sang de France, qu'il ne s'en fust trouvé mal." De Thou, ii. 830.

[944] "He remaineth close in a house, and no man permitted to speak with him; and his process is in hand. And I hear he shall now be committed to the castle of Loches, the strongest prison in all this realm." Sir Nich. Throkmorton, November 17, 1560, ubi supra, i. 138.

[945] La Place, 75, ubi supra; De Thou, ii. 832, 833 (liv. 26); Sommaire récit, ubi supra.

[946] La Planche, 402.

[947] Ib., 401; La Place, 75; Sommaire récit, ubi supra.

[948] La Planche, 400; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 10.

[949] Sommaire récit, ubi supra. "For, being a prince of the blood, he said, his process was to be adjudged either by the Princes of the blood or by the twelve Peers; and therefore willed the Chancellor and the rest to trouble him no further." Throkmorton, Nov. 28, 1560, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 151. Castelnau (liv. ii., c. 11) has, by a number of precedents, proved the validity of this claim.

[950] Mémoires de Condé, i. 619, containing the royal arrêt of Nov. 20th, rejecting Condé's demand; Sommaire récit. The (subsequent) First President of parliament, Christopher de Thou, was, after Chancellor L'Hospital, the leading member of the commission. His son, the historian, may be pardoned for dismissing the unpleasant subject with careful avoidance of details. La Planche makes no mention of the chancellor in connection with the case, but records Condé's indignant remonstrance against so devoted a servant of the Guises as the first president acting as judge.

[951] La Planche, 399.

[952] La Planche, 401; Davila, 37, 38; Castelnau, l. ii., c. 12. The unanimous voice of contemporary authorities, and the accounts given by subsequent historians, are discredited by De Thou alone (ii. 835, 836), who expresses the conviction, based upon his recollection of his father's statement, that the sentence was drawn up, but never signed. He also represents Christopher de Thou as suggesting to Condé his appeal from the jurisdiction of the commission, and opposing the violent designs of the Guises.

[953] La Planche, 401; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12.

[954] La Planche, 405, 406, has preserved this striking speech, which I have somewhat condensed in the text. Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire universelle, ubi supra.

[955] La Planche, it may be noticed, leans to this supposition. Ibid., 405.

[956] Ibid., 406; D'Aubigné, ubi supra.

[957] See Michele Suriano's account, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 528. The ambassador seems to have entertained no doubt of the complete success that would have crowned the movement had Francis's life been spared: "Il quale, se vivea un poco più, non solamente averia ripresso, ma estinto dal tutto quell' incendio che ora consuma il regno." The Spanish ambassador, Chantonnay, writing to his master, Nov., 1560, confirms the statements of Protestant contemporaries respecting the plan laid out for the destruction of the Bourbons, and then of the admiral and his brother D'Andelot; but the wily brother of Cardinal Granvelle, much as he would have rejoiced at the destruction of the heads of the Huguenot faction, was alarmed at the wholesale proscription, and expressed grave fears that so intemperate and violent a course would provoke a serious rebellion, and perhaps give rise to a forcible intervention in French affairs, on the part of Germany or England. "Pero á mi paresce que seria mas acertado castigar poco á poco los culpados que prender tantos de un golpe, porque assi se podrian meter en desesperacion sus parientes, y causar alguna grande rebuelta y admitir mas facilmente las platicas de fuera del reyno ... o de Alemania o de Inglaterra." Papiers de Simancas, apud Mignet, Journal des Savants, 1859, p. 39.

[958] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 12; La Planche, 404; Mémoires de Mergey (Collection Michaud and Poujoulat), 567. The Count of La Rochefoucauld, hearing through the Duchess of Uzès—a bosom confidant of Catharine, but a woman who was not herself averse to the Reformation—that Francis had remarked that the count "must prepare to say his Credo in Latin," had made all his arrangements to pass from Champagne into Germany with his faithful squire De Mergey, both disguised as plain merchants.

[959] La Planche, 404; De Thou, ii. 835 (liv. xxvi.). The latter does not place implicit confidence in these reports, while conceding that subsequent events would induce a belief that they were not destitute of a foundation. According to Throkmorton, also, writing to Cecil, Sept. 3, 1560, the chief burden was to rest with the clergy, who gave eight-tenths of the whole subsidy. State Paper Office.

[960] Ibid., 403; De Thou, iii. 82.

[961] Throkmorton's despatches from Orleans, several frequently sent off on a single day, acquaint us with the rapid progress of the king's disease, and the cold calculations based upon it. "The constitution of his body," he writes in the third of his letters that bear date Nov. 28th (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 156), "is such, as the physicians do say he cannot be long-lived: and thereunto he hath by his too timely and inordinate exercise now in his youth, added an evil accident; so as there be that do not let to say, though he do recover this sickness, he cannot live two years; whereupon there is plenty of discourses here of the French Queen's second marriage; some talk of the Prince of Spain, some of the Duke of Austrich, others of the Earl of Arran." No wonder that cabinet ministers and others often grew weary of the interminable debates respecting the marriages of queens regnant, and that William Cecil, as early as July, 1561, wrote respecting Queen Bess: "Well, God send our Mistress a husband, and by time a son, that we may hope our posterity shall have a masculine succession. This matter is too big for weak folks, and too deep for simple." Hardwick, State Papers, i. 174.

[962] Throkmorton to Chamberlain, Nov. 21, 1560. British Museum.

[963] De Thou, ii. 833, etc. (liv. 26); D'Aubigné, liv. ii., c. 20, p. 103.

[964] On the 17th of Nov. Throkmorton had written: "The house of Guise practiseth by all the means they can, to make the Queen Mother Regent of France at this next assembly; so as they are like to have all the authority still in their hands, for she is wholly theirs." Hardwick, State Papers, i. 140. D'Aubigné (ubi supra), who attributes to the sagacious counsel of Chancellor de l'Hospital the credit of influencing Catharine to take this course.

[965] I must refer the reader for the details of this remarkable interview and its results, which, it must be noted, Catharine insisted on Antoine's acknowledging over his signature, to the Histoire de l'Estat de France, tant de la république que de la religion, sous le règne de François II., commonly attributed to Louis Regnier de la Planche (pp. 415-418)—a work whose trustworthiness and accuracy are above reproach, and respecting which my only regret is that its valuable assistance deserts me at this point of the history.

[966] Ibid., 413.

[967] The words in the text are those of Calvin, in a letter to Sturm, written Dec. 16, 1560, not many days after the receipt of the astonishing intelligence. "Did you ever read or hear," he says, "of anything more opportune than the death of the king? The evils had reached an extremity for which there was no remedy, when suddenly God shows himself from heaven! He who pierced the eye of the father has now stricken the ear of the son." Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, Am. ed., iv. 152.

[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 órden 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.

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

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

[971] La Planche, 418.

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

[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 enterré à la huguenaute." La Planche, 421.

[974] De la Place, 76.

[975] "De consentir que une femme veuve, une estrangère et Italienne domine, non-seulement il luy tourneroit à grand déshonneur, mais à un tel préjudice de la couronne, qu'il en seroit blasmé à jamais." Calvin to the ministers of Paris, Lettres fr., ii. 346.

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

[977] Calvin, who read his contemporaries thoroughly, wrote to Bullinger (May 24, 1561): "Rex Navarræ 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 prævaricator forensis. Adde quod totus est venereus," etc. Baum, vol. ii., App., 32.

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

[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 porté à mon endroict, que j'ay grande occasion de m'en contenter, s'estant du tout mis entre mes mains et despouillé du pouvoir et d'auctorité soubz mon bon plaisir.... Je l'ay tellement gaigné, 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. Négociations relat. au règne de Fr. II., p. 786, 787.

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

[981] Mémoires 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. Mémoires de Condé (Edit. Michaud et Poujoulat), 579.

[982] "Che certo non può più." Relaz. di Giovanne Michele, ap. Tommaseo, Relations des Amb. Vén., i. 408.

[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, recommendé-vous bien à Dyeu, car vous m'avés veue ausi contente come vous, ne pensent jeamès avoyr aultre tryboulatyon que de n'estre asés aymayé à mon gré du roy vostre père, qui m'onoret pluls que je ne merités, mes je l'aymé tant que je avés tousjour peur, come vous savés fayrement asés: et Dyeu me l'a haulté, et ne se contente de sela, m'a haulté vostre frère que je aymé come vous savés, et m'a laysée aveque troys enfans petys, et en heun reaume (un royaume) tout dyvysé, n'y ayent heum seul à qui je me puise du tout fyer, qui n'aye quelque pasion partycoulyère." God alone, she goes on to say, can maintain her happiness, etc. Négociations, etc., 781, 782.

[984] "C'est folie d'espérer paix, repos et amitié entre les personnes qui sont de diverses religions.... Deux François et Anglois qui sont d'une mesme religion, ont plus d'affection et d'amitié entre eux que deux citoyens d'une mesme ville, subjects à un mesme seigneur, qui seroyent de diverses religions." La Place, p. 85; Histoire ecclés., i. 264.

[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'à la vérité, puisqu'il n'y a qu'une vraye religion à laquelle tous, petite et grands, doivent viser, le magistrat doit sur toutes choses pourvoir à ce qu'elle seule soit avouée et gardée aux pays de sa sujettion; mais ils niaient que de là il fallût conclure qu'amitié aucune ni paix ne pût être entre sujets de diverses religions, se pouvant vérifier le contraire tant par raisons péremptoires, que par expérience du temps passé et présent en la plupart du monde." Histoire ecclés., i. 268.

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

[987] The chancellor's address is given in extenso in Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et république pp. 80-88; and in the Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., 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 forcées, ny murailles de villes abbattues, ni maisons bruslées, ny priviléges ostés aux villes, commes les princes voisins ont faict de nostre temps en pareils troubles et séditions." La Place, ubi supra, p. 87. See other points specified in Histoire ecclés., ubi supra.

[988] La Place, 88.

[989] Ib., 79; Hist. ecclés., 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 suæ quidem Ecclesiæ patrocinium suscipere voluit."

[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.

[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 archevesché, un évesché 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 sçavoient auquel desditz bénéfices ilz debvoient résider." Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 91.

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

[993] La Place, Commentaires, 89; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 8-10; Hist. ecclés., 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.

[994] "Quasi noyés de telles trop fréquentes inondations des infectées lagunes de Genève." 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 fœdasse vocabulo tam probroso, sed ex ecclesiarum præscripto cogor." La Place, 101.

[995] "Encores, Sire, vous supplierons-nous très-humblement pour ce tant bon et tant obéissant peuple françois, duquel Dieu (vostre père et le leur aussi) vous a faict seigneur et roy; prenez en pitié, sire, et soublevez un peu les charges que dès long temps ils portent patiemment. Pour Dieu, sire, ne permettez que ce tiers pied de vostre throne soit aucunement foulé, meurtry ny brisé." La Place, 108.

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

[997] "Son discours, qu'il lut presque tout entier, fut long et ennuyeux.... rempli de lonanges fades, et de flatteries outrées, 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. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 275-277.

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

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

[1000] "Hanc supplicationem, scribitur ad nos, Regina ex Amyraldi manu acceptam promisisse se Concilio exhibituram, et magna omnium spes est nobis omnia hæc 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.

[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. ecclés. des églises réf., 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.

[1002] Letter of Charles IX., Jan. 28, 1561, Mémoires de Condé, ii. 268.

[1003] March 1st, "puysque la volunté du Roy est," Mém. de Condé, 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. Mém. de Condé, ii. 271, 272.

[1004] Calvin, Mémoire aux églises réf. de France, Dec., 1560, Lettres franç. (Bonnet), ii. 350.

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

[1006] "E benchè la più parte fossero ignoranti, e predicasse mille pazzie, però ogn'uno aveva il suo séguito." Michel Suriano, Commentarii del regno di Francia, Relations des Amb. Vén. (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.

[1007] Gaberel, Histoire de l'église de Genève, i., pièces just., p. 201-203, from the Archives of Geneva; Soulier, Histoire des édits de pacification (Paris, 1682), 22-25.

[1008] Gaberel, Hist. de l'église de Genève, i. (pièces justif.), 203-206. He gives the deliberation of the council, as well as the reply. Lettres franç. de Calvin, ii. 373-378. It needs scarcely to be noticed that the "Sieur Soulier, prêtre," 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.

[1009] La Place, Commentaires, 120; Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse accusation de Monsieur le prince de Condé, avec l'arrest de la cour contenant la déclaration de son innocence, in the Mém. de Condé, ii. 383; De Thou, iii. 38.

[1010] The arrêt of parliament of June 13th is given in Histoire ecclés., i. 291-293; Sommaire récit de la calomnieuse accusation de Monsieur le prince de Condé, iii. 391-394. See also La Place, 128-130; De Thou, iii. 50, 51; Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 39, 40.

[1011] Strange to say, the editor of the Mémoires de Condé 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 ecclésiastique, i. 296, 297; De Thou, iii. 56, gives the wrong date, Aug. 28th. Beza had from the lips of Condé, that very afternoon, an account, which he transmitted the next day to Calvin. Letter of Aug. 25th, apud Baum, iii., App., 47.

[1012] La Place, 121; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 40; Mém. de Condé, ii. 24, 25.

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

[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 Désiré fist amende honorable, tout nud, la torche au poing, dedans le palais, en ung jeudy, 14^e du mois, et fut condamné à rester dedans les Chartreux cinq ans au pain et à 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 à Paris."

[1015] "Où 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.

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

[1017] This very year parliament had issued an order, at the commencement of Lent, directing the sick, "permission préalablement obtenue," to purchase the meat they needed of the butcher of the Hôtel-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 Félibien, Histoire de Paris, iv., Preuves, 797.

[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.

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

[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.

[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.

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

[1023] This document first appears in the Mémoires de Condé, under the title "Sommaire des choses premièrement accordées entre les Ducs de Montmorency Connestable, et De Guyse Grand Maistre, Pairs de France, et le Mareschal Sainct André, pour la Conspiration du Triumvirat, et depuis mises en déliberation à l'entrée du Sacré et Sainct Concile de Trente, et arrestée entre les Parties, en leur privé Conseil faict contre les Hérétiques, 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 Mém. de Condé 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 réforme, de la ligue, etc., ii. 243-245) asserts: "J'ai trouvé cette pièce, qu'on a crue supposée, en original et signée 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 Mémoires de Guise, the manuscript of which, according to the statement of the editor, M. Aimé Champollion, fils (Notice sur François de Lorraine, due d'Aumale et de Guise, prefixed to his Mémoires, 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 Mémoires de Condé, 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 mémoires 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 Condé 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 Mémoires 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.

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

[1025] "Aulcuns desditz ecclésiasticques," 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 à mettre la main aux cousteaux et aux armes." Mémoires, i. 129.

[1026] Mémoires de Condé, i. 27.

[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 "assemblée" 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 Mém. de Condé, ii. 339.

[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.

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

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

[1031] Journal de Bruslart, Mémoires de Condé, i. 26, etc.; Registers of Parliament, ibid., ii. 341, etc., and apud Félibien, Hist. de Paris, Preuves, iv. 798, Arrêt 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. Barthélemi 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.

[1032] Letters patent of Fontainebleau, April 19, 1561, Mém. de Condé, ii. 334, 335; La Place; and Hist. ecclés., ubi supra; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 52.

[1033] How the devoted adherents of the Roman church received this edict and its predecessor appears from the Mémoires 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 apporté ung mémoire et papier escript, qu'on m'a dict estre la coppie d'un édict 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 à l'autre, et que nous aultres Françoys, e'est assavoir les hérétiques 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 miséricorde avoir pitié de son église et du royaume de France, les deux ensemble sont prestz de tomber en grande ruyne; Dieu veuille bailler bon conseil à nostre jeune roy et inspirer ses gouverneurs à bien faire; ils entrent à leur gouvernement par ung pauvre commencement, mais ce est en punition de noz pechez." Mémoires de Claude Haton, i. 123, 124.

[1034] La Place, 124-126; Histoire ecclés., 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, Mémoires de Condé, ii. 6-10.

[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, assemblées et lieux publicz, ilz huguenotz avoient le hault parler." Despite the prohibition of the employment of insulting terms, they called their adversaries "papaux, idolâtres, pauvres abusez." and "tisons du purgatoire du pape." Mémoires, i. 122. Doubtless a smaller measure of free speech than this would have sufficed to stir up the bile of the curate of Mériot.

[1036] Already, on the 6th of March, Claude Boissière 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 égl. réf. de Pons, Gémozac, etc., 57.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1043] Mémoires 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.

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

[1045] Journal de Bruslart, Mémoires de Condé, i. 40, etc.; Despatches of Chantonnay, Mém. de Condé, ii. 12-15; La Place, 130; Hist. ecclés., 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.

[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 achevée, mais la conclusion n'est pas encores publiée."

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

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

[1049] "Que son épée ne tiendrait jamais au fourreau quand il serait question da faire sortir effet à cet arrêté." Martin, x. 83.

[1050] Ibid., ubi supra.

[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.

[1052] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 530-532.

[1053] Letter to the church of Sauve, July, 1561, Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 415-418. It is instructive to note that the Provincial Synod of Sommières 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.

[1054] See the royal letters of prorogation of March 25th, Mém. de Condé, ii. 281-284.

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

[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.

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

[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.

[1059] "Le temps est une créature de Dieu à luy subjecte, de manière 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 mémorables (1565), 620-645, in La Place, liv. vi. 141-150, and in the Hist. ecclés. des églises réformées, i. 298-305. Summary in De Thou, iii. 57, 58.

[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 état," 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. Mémoires d'Achille Gamon—advocate and consul of Annonay—apud Collection de Mémoires, 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 (Mémoires de Condé, 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 Abbé Bruslart, touched to the quick by the suggestion, notes in his quaint journal: "Voilà les incommoditez de la nouvelle religion," etc. (Ib., i. 28).

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

[1062] La Place, 152; De Thou, iii. 58, 59; Hist. ecclés., 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.

[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 esté requise, y a déja quelques mois, de la pluspart de la noblesse et des gens du tiers estat de ce Royaume, de faire ouïr lea ministres, qui sont départis en plusieurs villes de cedit Royaume, sur leur Confession de Foy; je fus conseillée 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 avisé après avoir longuement et meurement délibéré là-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 découvrant ce qu'il y a d'erreur et d'hérésie." Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 732, 733.

[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 ... accordé à ceux desdits Ministres qui seroient nez en France, de comparoittre à Poissy."

[1065] The letters of La Rivière, Condé, Châtillon, 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 Rivière, in the name of all the ministers of Paris, to Calvin, July 31, 1561, Bulletin, xvi. (1867), 602-604.

[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.

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

[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 reginæ persuasit, ut Possiaci conventus haberetur episcoporum Galliæ, 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 quæ erant de religione controversa proponerentur; futurum sperans, ut ne respondere quidem ad sua postulata auderent. Confidebat enim Lotharingius et doctrinæ et eloquentiæ suæ, et plurimum, ut debebat, ipsius causæ bonitati." Cardinal Tournon was opposed to this course: "Non probabat hoc factum Turnonius, ut qui disputationem omnem cum hæreticis fugiendam noverat." P. Santacrucii de civilibus Galliæ dissensionibus commentarii, Martene et Durand, tom. v. 1462.

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

[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.

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

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

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

[1074] "Les avertissant qu'il ne leur donneroit congé de se départir jusques à ce qu'ils y eussent donné 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 Popelinière, 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).

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

[1076] "Sans venir au fait de la doctrine, où 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 Mém. de Castelnau, i. 731. If we are to construe the language of the Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf. (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!

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

[1078] Letter of Chantonnay, Aug. 31 (Mém. de Condé, ii. 16).

[1079] "Mais ceux qui sont extremement malades sont excusez d'appliquer toutes herbes à 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[1083] "Que je n'avoys reçu change depuis qu'il n'avoit voulu parler à moy de peur d'estre excommunié." 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, à Villedieu." The Duke d'Aumale has also published this letter in his Histoire des Princes de Condé, 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.

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

[1085] Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, ubi supra. Beza, to whom Condé 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.

[1086] "Estant arrivez à la court, ilz y furent mieux accueillis que n'eust esté le pape de Rome, s'il y fust venu." Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 155.

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

[1088] "Nous confessons, dy-je, que panis est corpus sacramentale, et pour définir que c'est à 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 donné ce corps et reçu par nous, moyennant la foy," etc. Baum, ii. App., 52.

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

[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.

[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.

[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 à laquelle vous accordez.'" Letter of Beza, ubi supra, 52.

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

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

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

[1096] "Le lendemain le bruict courut, non seulement à la cour, mais aussi à Possy, et jusques aux pays loingtains, que de Bèze avoit esté vaincu et réduict 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 cessé de se venter qu'il m'a convaincu et reduict à 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 Connétable ayant dit à le Reine à son disner, comme s'en rejouissant, elle lui dict tout hautement, comme celle qui avoit assisté, qu'il estoit très-mal informé." Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 312.

[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.

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

[1099] La Place, 154. "Ce même jour selon nostre requeste a esté accordé 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

[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 tranché 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 proposées. Les ecclesiastiques qui estoyent presens out dit qu'ils ne vouloyent rien respondre de ceste affaire, qu'ils n'en eussent parlé à leurs compaygnons." Letter of François de Morel, Aug. 25, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 55.

[1101] On the 9th of June, 1561, Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf, i. 308.

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

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

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

[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 malaisé mesmes avec l'escripture d'empescher de decevoir celuy qui ha intention de tromper." La Place, 157.

[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.

[1107] Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, ubi supra; La Place, 157; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 314.

[1108] La Place, 154; Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 230-234. To the names mentioned in the text must be added the name of Jean de l'Espine, who joined his brethren soon after their arrival at Poissy. He was a Carmelite monk of high reputation for learning, who now, for the first time, threw aside the cowl and subscribed to the reformed confession of faith. For an interesting account of his conversion caused by conversing with and witnessing the triumphant death of a Protestant, Jean Rabec, executed April 24, 1556, see Ph. Vincent, Recherches sur les commencements et premiers progrès de la Réf. en la ville de la Rochelle, 1693, apud Bulletin, ix. 30-32. The delegates of the churches were more numerous than the ministers; there were twenty-two, according to the Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 316; though the Abbé Bruslart (Mém. de Condé, i. 51), swells the number to twenty-eight. The names of twelve, representing twelve of the principal provinces, are given, with variations, by two MSS. of the National Library of Paris (Dupuy Coll., vols. 309 and 641), see F. Bourquelot, notes to Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 155.

[1109] Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, apud Baum, ii., App. 61; La Place, 158.

[1110] Beza, ubi supra. An engraving of the period, reproduced by Montfaucon, affords a pleasant view of the quaint scene.

[1111] La Place, 157; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 314; De Thou, iii. 65.

[1112] Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug. 30, 1561, ap. Baum, ii., App., 59.

[1113] The speeches of Charles and L'Hospital seem to have been delivered before the introduction of Beza; cf. Hist. ecclés. des églises réf., i. 316. Prof. Baum, following La Place, 157, and De Thou, iii. 65-67, represents them as having been delivered subsequently. Theodor Beza, ii. 238.

[1114] La Place, 158; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 314, 315. I have alluded to the fact, first noticed by Prof. Soldan, that De Thou and others have placed here a speech which was in reality delivered five or six weeks earlier; while not only they, but also the accurate La Place and the author of the Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., have done the same by the king's speech, and a rejoinder of Tournon to L'Hospital's address.

[1115] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 316.

[1116] This interesting incident Prof. Baum discovered in a fragmentary MS. in the remarkable collection of the late Col. Tronchin. Theodor Beza, ii. 238. The text is thus given in the Bulletin xiii. (1864) 284: "M. de Besze, entrant dans la conférence de Poissy avec un ministre de Genève, un cardinal dit: Voici les chiens de Genève! M. de Besze, l'ayant entendu, répondit: Il est bien nécessaire que, dans la bergerie du Seigneur, il y ait des chiens pour abboyer contre les loups."

[1117] "Es sind auch die Cardinäl, diewyl er geredt, mit entdektem Houpt gestunden, und beede mal, diewyl sy gebätet, hat sich die alte Künigin niderglassen und mit gebätet, der Künig aber ist bliben still sitzen." Letter of Haller to Bullinger, Berne, Sept. 23, 1561, ap. Baum, ii., App., 73.

[1118] Baum, ii. 245.

[1119] La Place, 159; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf. i. 316. The current, but erroneous belief, that this confession was first composed by Theodore Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy, has already been noticed. It had been printed, as we have seen (ante, c. viii. p. 343), in the Geneva Liturgy as early as in 1542; and earlier still in that of Strasbourg. It was already the favorite of martyrs and confessors. Jean Vernou, in 1515, recited it at the estrapade. "Verum antequam mactaretur," says Jean Crespin, "preces ad Deum fudit, ita exorsus: 'Domine Deus et Pater omnipotens ego certe coram sacrosancta majestate tua ex animo et syncere agnosco me peccatorem esse miserrimum,' et cætera quæ in precationum formula recitantur statim initio." The margin reads: "Initium precum solennium Geneuæ." Actiones et monimenta martyrum, Genevæ 1560, fol. 321.

[1120] La Place, 159; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 316.

[1121] "De Bèze portant la parole pour tous les autres, commença et continua longuement sa rémonstrance en assez doux termes, se soûmettant souventefois, si l'on montroit par la Sainte Escriture," etc. Letter of Catharine de' Medici to the Bishop of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561, apud Le Laboureur, Add. Castelnau, i. 733.

[1122] "His solumodo verbis Cardinales atque Episcopi usque adeo exasperati atque exacerbati sunt, ut in hæc verba, orationem ipsius interpellates, proruperint: blasphemavit, blasphemavit Deum! Sed eorum adversis admurmurationibus D. Beza minime perturbatus, eodem vultu," etc. Letter of Joh.. Guil. Stuckius to Conrad Hubert, Sept. 18, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 66.

[1123] "Da Beza eine schöne Oration gethon, darinn er kurtz perstringiert alle strytigen Artikel, und als er letstlich kom uff den Artikel von der Gegenwirtikeit Christi im Sacrament, und under anderm gesagt das sige so veer von einander als der Himmel von der Erden, habend die Sorbonischen angfangen klopfen, rütschen, brummlen, das nieman nüt mer mögen hören, dess die alte Königin übel zufriden gsyn. Dessgleichen auch der Cardinal von Lutringen und sy gheissen in Stille losen, man werde sy doch hernach auch gutwilliklich verhören." Letter of Haller to Bullinger, Sept. 25, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 73. "Cela fut trouvé si nouveau et estrange entre les prélats, que soubdain ils commencèrent tous à murmurer et faire un grand bruict; lequel toutesfois estant aucunement appaisé," etc. La Place, 167, 168. "Hic enim mussitare Cardinales et Episcopi, et tantum non vestes scindere." Letter of Martyr to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 12, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 63.

[1124] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 327.

[1125] Letter of Haller, ubi supra.

[1126] The admirable speech of Theodore Beza is given word for word by La Place, 159-167, and somewhat modernized by the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 316-327. Cf. De Thou, iii. 67, 68; Castelnau, 1. iii., c. 4; Abbé Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 51; Letters of Stuck, Haller, and Martyr, ubi supra. Summa eorum quæ a die 22. Augusti usque ad 15. Septembr. in aula regis Galliæ acta sunt, apud F. C. Schlosser, Leben des Theodor de Beza und des Peter Martyr Vermili (Heidelberg, 1809), Appendix, 355-359. Discours des Actes de Poissy, ubi supra, 652-657.

[1127] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 327; La Place, 168; De Thou, iii. 68; Letter of Haller, ubi supra; Actes de Poissy, Recueil des choses mém., 657, 658.

[1128] The response of the queen is concisely given by La Place, the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., the Actes de Poissy, and De Thou (ubi supra); but the graphic account upon which the text is based is found in the letter of Haller to Bullinger, Sept. 25, 1561, which Prof. Baum discovered at Zurich, and has published in the volume of documents which figures as an appendix to the second volume of his extremely valuable biography of Beza. It is superfluous for me to acknowledge formally my obligations to this rich storehouse of original authorities, since the frequent references that I have already made, and shall doubtless have occasion for some time to make, to its separate documents, will sufficiently attest the high estimate I place upon its value. The correspondence of the reformers is always an important commentary upon the contemporaneous history. In the present instance, much of the most trustworthy information is derived from it. Prof. Baum's own narrative is admirable (Book iv., c. 5).

[1129] "Car d'y proceder à present par la force," writes Catharine de' Medici at this very time, "il s'y voit un si éminent peril, pour estre ce mal penetré si avant comme il est, que je n'en suis en sorte du monde conseillée par ceux qui aiment le repos de cet Estat." Letter of Sept. 14th, apud Le Laboureur, i. 734.

[1130] The testimony of Marc' Antonio Barbaro is the more interesting from the reluctance he manifests to say any good of the reformer, whom he blames for a great part of the progress of the Huguenots in France. "È d'assai bello aspetto, ma d'animo molto brutto, perciocchè, oltra l'eresie sue, è sedizioso e pieno di vizii e di scelerità, che non racconto per brevità. Ha vivo spirito, e ingegno acuto, ma non è prudente, nè ha ponto di giudizio. Mostra d'esser eloquente, perchè parla assai con belle parole e prontamente," etc. Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 52.

[1131] "Ha operato tanto con la sua lingua, che non solamente ha persuaso infiniti, massimamente dei nobili e grandi, ma è quasi adorato da molti nel regno, i quali tengono nelle camere la figura sua." Ib., ubi supra.

[1132] So Calvin's eye saw in an instant, and he applauded Beza's boldness. "Your speech is now before us," he wrote to Beza, Sept. 24th, "in which God wonderfully directed your mind and your tongue. The testimony which stirred up the bile of the holy fathers could not but be given, unless you had been willing basely to tergiversate and to expose yourself to their taunts." "I wonder that they were thrown into agitation respecting this matter alone, since they were not less severely hit in other places. It is a stupid assertion that the conference was broken off in consequence of this ground of offence. For those who now, by rabidly laying hold of one ground, after a certain fashion subscribe to the rest of the doctrine, would have found out a hundred other grounds. This also has, therefore, turned out happily." Calvini Epistolæ, Opera, ix. 157.

[1133] To her ambassador in Germany, instructed to defend her course in convening the conference, however, she purposely exaggerated her indignation, and gave a different coloring to the facts of the case. "Mais estant enfin (de Bèze) tombé sur le fait de la Cene, il s'oublia en une comparaison si absurde et tant offensive des oreilles de l'assistance, que pen s'en fallut, que je ne luy imposasse silence, et que je ne les renvoyasse tous, sans les laisser passer plus avant." She accounts for the fact that she did not stop him, by noticing that he was evidently near the end of his speech, and by the consideration that, "as they are accustomed to take advantage of everything 'pour la confirmation et persuasion de leur doctrine,' they would rather have gained by such a command; and moreover, that those who had heard his arguments would have gone away imbued with and persuaded of his doctrine, without hearing the answer that might be made." Letter of Cath. of Sept. 14th, ubi supra. Prof. Baum well remarks that "the last words furnish the most irrefragable proof of the great and convincing impression which the speech in general had made." Theod. Beza, ii. 263, note.

[1134] It is inserted in La Place, 168, 169, and Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 328-330; De Thou, iii. (liv. 28) 69. Letter of Cath., ubi supra.

[1135] "Would that he had been dumb, or that we had been deaf!" the Cardinal of Lorraine is said to have exclaimed in the prelatic consultation. La Place and Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ubi supra; J. de Serres, i. 273.

[1136] La Place, 170; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 330, 331, where the protest is reproduced.

[1137] "Me excludere volebant adversarii, ne interessem, tanquam hominem peregrinum. Regina tamen mater per Condæum principem eo ipso articulo, cum profisciscendum erat, evocavit et adesse voluit." Letter of Martyr to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 19, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 67.

[1138] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 332.

[1139] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 332-348; La Place, 170-177; De Thou, iii. 70; J. de Serres, i. 273-280. The impression made by the cardinal's speech upon his Romanist and Protestant hearers differed widely. According to the Abbé Bruslart (Mém. de Condé, i. 52), he spoke "en si bons et élégans termes, et d'une si bonne grace et asseurance, que nos adversaires mesmes l'admiroient." Stuck makes him speak "admodum inepte" (ap. Baum, ii., App., 66); while Beza writes: "Nihil unquam audivi impudentius, nihil ineptius.... Cætera ejusmodi quæ certe mihi nauseam moverunt" (Ib., 63, 64). Peter Martyr judged more leniently (Ib., 67, 68). It is, therefore, hardly likely that Beza said, as Dr. Henry White alleges without referring to his authority (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 64); "Had I the Cardinal's eloquence I should hope to convert half France."

[1140] La Place, 178; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ubi supra; Jean de Serres, i. 280; De Thou, iii. 71.

[1141] La Place, etc., ubi supra; J. de Serres, i. 281.

[1142] "Nobis certum est," says Beza in a letter of Sept. 17th, "vel mox congredi vel protestatione facta discedere, si pergant diem de die ducere." Baum, ii., App., 64.

[1143] "Quid novi sperare possim non video. Nempe vel ipsa necessitas aliquid extorquebit, vel, quod Deus avertat, expectanda sunt omnia belli civilis incommoda. Quotidie ex diversis regni partibus multa ad nos tristia afferuntur in utramque partem, quoniam utrinque peccatur plerisque locis." Letter of Beza, Sept. 17th, ubi supra. In a similar strain Stuck writes on the next day: "In Gascony and Normandy scarcely an image is any longer to be seen; masses have ceased to be said. Undoubtedly, unless the liberty of preaching and hearing the Gospel with impunity be granted, there is great reason to fear an intestine war." Baum, ii., App., 67. Cf. Summa eorum, etc., apud Schlosser, Leben des Theodor de Beza, Anhang, 358, 359.

[1144] La Place, Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., Jean de Serres, etc., ubi supra, Castelnau, l. iii., c. 4.

[1145] No wonder; the prelates had just solemnly decreed, as Abbé Bruslart informs us (Mém. de Condé, i. 52): "Non erat congrediendum cum his qui principia et fundamentum totius nostræ fidei et religionis christianæ negant." Not only so; but they had protested against the heretics being heard, and had declared that whoever conferred with them would be excommunicated! "Disants que ceux qui conféreroient avec eux seroient excommuniés." The reader, if he cannot admire their consistency, will certainly be struck with astonishment at the fortitude of the prelates who, a few hours later, could bring themselves with so little apparent trepidation under the highest censures of the Church. Bruslart goes on to tell us that it was the Cardinal of Lorraine who brought them into this dreadful condemnation, partly hoping to convert the Huguenots, partly to please Catharine de' Medici!

[1146] "Mais ce ne fut pas en si grande compagnie qu'auparavant. Car Messieurs les preslats croignoyent que le monde ne fut infecté de nos heresies, qu'ils appellent." Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, Oct. 3, 1861, Baum, ii., App., p. 88.

[1147] Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 311, 312.

[1148] Ib., ubi supra, Hist. ecclés., i. 349. Letter of N. des Gallars to the Bishop of London, Sept. 29th, Baum, ii., App., 80.

[1149] Beza's speech is given in full by La Place, 179-189; Hist. eccl. des égl. réf., i. 350-362; and J. de Serres, i. 282-312. See also De Thou, iii. 71, and N. des Gallars, ubi supra.

[1150] "Et hoc quidem prorsus inepte, quia neque conquesti eramus, neque quemquam poterat videri magis accusare, quam eum ipsum [sc. Cardinal Loth.] cui accesserat advocatus." Letter of Beza, Sept. 27th, apud Baum, ii., App., 75. It was Beza's firm belief that D'Espense had been hired by Lorraine to compose his speech of the 16th of September, as well as to defend him on the present occasion. He therefore not inappositely calls him, in this letter to Calvin, "conductitius Balaam."

[1151] La Place, 189, 190; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 364; Jean de Serres, i. 315; Beza, ubi supra.

[1152] La Place, 192; Jean de Serres, i. 321-323; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 370; Beza to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 77; N. des Gallars to the Bishop of London, ibid., 81; De Thou, iii. 73.

[1153] Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, ubi supra. Besides permitting the communication of this information, the break in the conferences (caused by the discovery, on Catharine's part, that the majority of the prelates had resolved to submit a proposition respecting the mass, drawn up in a strictly Romish sense—a refusal to sign which they intended to take as the signal for declining to hold any further intercourse with the Protestants) furnished an opportunity for Montluc, Bishop of Valence—a prelate suspected of Protestant proclivities—and Claude d'Espense, one of the most moderate of the theologians of the Sorbonne, to meet privately, by request of Catharine de' Medici, with Beza and Des Gallars. The result of their interview was the provisional adoption of a declaration on the subject of the eucharist, which, though undoubtedly Protestant in its natural import, was rejected by the rest of the ministers as not sufficiently explicit. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ubi supra. See a full account in Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 342-344. They rightly judged that where there is essential discrepancy of belief, little or nothing can be gained by cloaking it in ambiguous expressions.

[1154] Beza's address is inserted in La Place, 193-196; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 371, etc. See also De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.), 74; letters of Beza to Calvin, and N. des Gallars to the Bishop of London, ubi supra; Jean de Serres, i. 327, etc.

[1155] La Place, De Thou, letters of Beza, and des Gallars, etc., ubi supra. "Comme si les feu rois François le grand, Henry le débonnaire, François dernier décédé, et Charles à present règnant (et faisoit sonner ces mots autant qu'il pouvoit) avoient été tyrans et simoniacles." Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 375.

[1156] La Place, Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., etc., ubi supra. Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii., App., 88, 89.

[1157] Because he was not sufficiently familiar with French, according to La Place, 197 (ne sçachant parler françois); and in order to make himself better understood by the queen "ut a regina intelligi posset," than he would have been had he spoken in Latin. Letter of Beza, Baum, ii., App., 79. "D'Espense," says La Place ubi supra, "lors donna ceste louange audict Martyr, qu'il n'y avoit eu homme de ce temps qui si amplement et avec telle érudition eust escript du faict du sacrement que luy."

[1158] Although Lainez spoke in Italian (see Baum, ii. 363), it is needless to say that the Cardinal of Lorraine made no objection to the use of a language which, it may be added, he understood perfectly. The reader may see some reason in the summary of Lainez's speech given in the text, for dissenting from the remark of MM. Oimber et Danjou, iv. 34, note: "Il [Lainez] fit entendre dans le colloque de Poissy, des paroles de paix et de conciliation."

[1159] "I said," writes Beza, in giving an account of his brief reply to Lainez, "that I would concede all the Spaniard's assertions when he proved them. As to his statement that we were foxes, and serpents, and apes, we no more believed it than we believed in transubstantiation." Letter to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 79.

[1160] La Place, 198; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 377-379; Jean de Serres, i. 335-339; Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, Baum, ii., App., 79.

[1161] "Qui præ ceteris doctrina et ingenio, atque etiam moderatione præstare existimantur." Letter of N. des Gallars, ubi supra, 82. "Gens doctes et traictables." Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, ibid., 90.

[1162] Ante, p. 475.

[1163] "Fateor equidem (nec causa est cur id negem) falsam istam doctrinam, non tam fortasse aperte, quam ipsi facere soletis, confutasse: Babylonem tamen cum cuniculis, tum aperto etiam marte, ut res et tempus ferebat, ita semper oppugnavi, ut noster iste in eo genere conatus optimo cuique semper probaretur." Letter of Salignac to Calvin, Calvini Opera, ix. 163, 164. Calvin (probably, as Prof. Baum remarks, at Beza's suggestion) wrote to Salignac, about a month after the termination of the Colloquy of Poissy, a respectful but extremely frank letter, in which he urged him to espouse with decision the cause he secretly advocated. He reminded him that it was no mean honor to have been among the first fruits of the revival of truth in France. He urged him to put an end to his inordinate hesitation, by the consideration of the number of those who were still vacillating, but who would forthwith imitate his example if he forsook the enemy's camp for the fold of Christ. Letter of Calvin to Salignac, Nov. 19, 1561, Calvini Opera, ix. 163; Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), iv. 239-241. Salignac's reply, from which the extract given above is taken, is characteristic of the man—less conscious of his weakness than Gérard Roussel, but equally faint-hearted. See also Baum, ii. 387, 388.

[1164] See Prof. Baum's graphic account, ii. 390-392. The next day Martyr wrote out and presented a fuller statement of his belief, which is inserted among the documents of Baum, ii., App., 84, 85.

[1165] "En tant que la foy rend les choses promises présentes, et que la foy prent véritablement le corps et le sang de nostre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, par la vertu du Sainct-Esprit; en cest esgard nous confessons la présence du corps et du sang d'iceluy en la saincte cène, en laquelle il nous présente, donne et exhibe véritablement la substance de son corps et sang, par l'opération de son Sainct-Esprit; y recevons et mangeons spirituellement et par foy," etc. Mém. de Condé, i. 55; La Place, 199; Jean de Serres, i. 340. Letter of Des Gallars, Baum, ii., App., 83.

[1166] "Nous confessons que Jésus-Christ en sa céne nous présente, donne et exhibe véritablement la substance de son corps et de son sang par l'opération du Sainct-Esprist; et que nous recevons et mangeons spirituellement et par foy ce propre corps, qui est mort pour nous, pour estre os de ses os, et chair de sa chair, à fin d'en estre vivifié, et percevoir tout ce qui est requis à nostre salut. Et pour ce que la foy appuyée sur la parolle de Dieu fait et rend présentes les choses prises, et que par ceste foy nous prenons vrayement et de faict le vray et naturel corps et sang de nostre Seigneur par la vertu du Sainct-Esprit, en cest esgard nous confessons la présence du corps et sang d'iceluy en sa saincte cène." La Place, 199; J. de Serres, i. 341. Letter of des Gallars, ubi supra, 83, 84; Languet, Epist. secr., ii. 148; Mém. de Condé, i. 55.

[1167] Letter of Beza, Oct. 3d and 4th, Baum, ii., App., 93; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 382.

[1168] "Peutêtre qu'il pensait dire vrai," shrewdly observes the author of the Hist. des églises réformées (i. 382), "n'ayant jamais le loisir telles gens de bien penser, s'ils croient ou non, ni à ce qu'ils pensent croire."

[1169] Letter of N. des Gallars, ubi supra, 84: "Quum hanc formam legisset Cardinalis, mire approbavit, ac lætatus est quasi ad ejus castra transissemus."

[1170] "Intelligimus etiam ipsos a suis objurgari quasi sentiant nobiscum aut colludant." Letter of N. des Gallars, Oct. 6th, ubi supra. See also letter of Beza, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii., App., 94.

[1171] The most extended and accurate view of the Colloquy of Poissy is afforded by Prof. Baum, who has consecrated to it two hundred and fifty pages of the second volume of his masterly biography of Beza (pp. 168-419). The correspondence of Beza and others that were present at the colloquy, collected by Prof. Baum in the supplementary volume of documents (published in 1852), and the detailed accounts of the Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf, of La Place (Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et république, which here terminate), and of Jean de Serres, who, in this part of his history, does little more than translate La Place, are the most important sources of authentic information. Castelnau's account of the colloquy (1. iii., c. 4) is remarkably incorrect. He makes the ten delegates confer together for three months, without agreeing on a single point, and finally separate on the 25th of November. Davila is brief and unsatisfactory (pp. 50, 51).

[1172] From what Martyr wrote to the magistrates of Zurich (Oct. 17th) respecting the conduct of the bishops in connection with the subscription to the canons, it would appear that the close of the prelatic assembly did not disgrace the amenities of the debates at its commencement (see ante, p. 499): "Accidit mira Dei providentia, ut repente inter episcopos, qui erant Poysiaci, tam grave dissidium ortum fuerit, ut fere ad manus venerint, imo, ut homines fide digni affirmant res ut pugnis et unguibus est acta." Baum, ii., App., 107. See also the extract from Martyr's letter of the same date to Bullinger, cited by Prof. Baum, ii. 401, note.

[1173] Histoire ecclés., i. 383-405. See Baum, ii. 399-401.

[1174] The vote was, according to Beza's letter of Oct. 21st, sixteen millions of francs with interest within six years (Baum, ii., App. 109); according to the Journal of Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 53, within twelve years. Prof. Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 512, 513, gives the details of the famous "Contract of Poissy." It must be admitted that both nobles and people were ready enough with plans for paying off the national indebtedness out of the property of the Church. These generous economists found that, according to the ancient customs, one-third of the ecclesiastical revenues ought to be employed for the support of the clergy, one-third to be given to the poor, and the remaining third expended in keeping the sacred edifices in repair. They proposed, therefore, to relieve the clergy of the latter two-thirds of their possessions, and apply them to the extinction of the royal debt, assuming that the nation would maintain the churches in better condition, and feed the poor more effectively than had ever been done hitherto! Languet, Letter of Aug. 17th, Epist. secr., ii. 136.

[1175] Baum, ii. 408.

[1176] Oct. 20th, according to Recueil des anc. lois franç., xiv. 122.

[1177] Text of the edict in Mém. de Condé, ii. 520-528 (De Thou, iii. 99, following the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., erroneously gives the date as Nov. 3d); Letter of Beza, Oct. 21st, Baum, ii., App., 109; Letter of Martyr, Oct. 17th, ibid., 107.

[1178] Beza, ubi supra; Car. Joinvillæus, Nov. 5th, Baum, ii., App., 123.

[1179] Oct. 19th, according to Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 59. According to La Place, the assembly of the prelates did not break up until the 30th of October, after a session of about three months: "Et le trentiesme dudict mois ... fut ainsi finie ladicte assemblée, sans apporter autre fruict, après avoir esté toutesfois assemblés [les prélats] par l'espace de trois mois ou environ." (Page 201.)

[1180] "De fait," wrote Calvin of the Augsburg Confession, "elle est si maigrement bastie, si molle et si obscure, qu'on ne s'y sauroit arrester." Letter to Beza, Sept. 24, 1561. Bonnet, Lettres franç., ii. 428; Baum, ii., App., 70.

[1181] The account of the occasion of the mission of delegates from Germany, given in the text, is based on Soldan, Gesch. des Prot, in Frankreich, i. 531-537. He has, I think, sufficiently demonstrated the inaccuracy of the ordinary story (accepted even by Prof. Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. 370, 419, etc.), which attributes their advent chiefly, if not wholly, to the desire of Lorraine. It is said that, after hearing Beza's speech of the ninth of September, the cardinal sought to obtain, through the instrumentality of the Marshal de Vieilleville, at Metz, and his salaried spy Rascalon, at Heidelberg, some decided Lutherans, to be employed in bringing the Protestants at Poissy into contempt, through the wrangling of their theologians with those of Germany. See the Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., etc. Yet it is not improbable, as La Place, Commentaires, 200, seems to hint that Navarre's project was maliciously countenanced by the Cardinal of Lorraine. But the circumstance that, of the five German theologians, not less than two were opposed to the Augsburg Confession, proves conclusively that they could not have been despatched with the view of helping the cardinal out in his attempt. Bossuet's admiration of the prelate's sagacity, in thus seeking to give a brilliant demonstration of the variations of doctrine among Protestants, certainly seems to be wasted.

[1182] Ante, c. xi., p. 493.

[1183] See the list of the twenty members of the council, in Recueil des anc. lois franç., xiv. 55, 56.

[1184] See Baum, ii. 215.

[1185] "Affulserat aliqua spes concordiæ, sed Legatus Pontificius, i. e., Cardinalis Ferrariensis omnia perturbavit." Letter of Martyr to the magistrates of Zurich, Oct. 17, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 108.

[1186] "Quique ingenio, eloquentia, artificio plurimum valebat." Prosp. Santacrucii, Comment de civil. Galliæ dissen., 1461.

[1187] "Ne ipse exequiis, ut dicebat, illius regni interesset." Ibid., ubi supra. Somewhat maliciously Santa Croce suggests that Gualtieri was all the more reluctant to remain after he heard of the creation of nineteen new cardinals, and learned that his own name was not included in the list.

[1188] "Angebatur interea Romæ gravissimis curis Pius pontifex, quod nec quæ legati fecissent satis probaret, et in dies malum magis serpere, omniaque remedia minus juvare audiebat." Ib., 1462.

[1189] He was described to the Pope by his secretary, Prosper himself tells us, as "virum exercitatum, magni animi, multarum literarum, eloquentem, magnæque apud Gallos auctoritatis," having obtained great familiarity with French affairs when nuncio in Henry the Second's lifetime. Ib., 1463.

[1190] "Non tam ut numerus legatorum, quam ut plus auctoritatis legatio haberet, si ab ipsius (ut dicunt) pontificis latere legatus discederet ... quasi aliorum legatorum creatio, quod erant jam in Gallia, neque Roma proficiscerentur, non satis diligenter curare negotium diceretur." Ib., 1462.

[1191] "Grande hombre de entretenimientos y de encantar." Vargas calls him. Letter to Granvelle, Nov. 15, 1561, Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle, vi. 416.

[1192] "Diess waren zwölf gewiss mächtige Gründe," etc. Baum, ii. 302; La Place, 153; Marc' Ant. Barbaro, Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. 86.

[1193] "Multum inde auri reportaturus existimetur, si ibi annum vel biennium communi omnium more transigat." Santacrucii, de civil. Galliæ diss. comment., 1464.

[1194] That is, excepting the cardinal's hat, which his friends informed him would be the reward of his services in France. Ibid., ubi supra.

[1195] Ibid., 1462, 1463, 1465.

[1196] Ibid., 1465.

[1197] "Lugduno hucusque omnes fere declinavit urbes in itinere, ut quæ jam habeant Ministros, et ideo irrisiones extimuerit." Letter of Peter Martyr, Sept. 19th, Baum, ii., App., 68.

[1198] "These artifices," wrote Languet from Paris at the time, "impose upon no one; and especially from this man, who is very well known here, who heretofore has surpassed even the highest princes in the luxury and splendor of his mode of life, and of whose utter want of knowledge of letters no one is ignorant." Letter of Sept. 20, 1561, Epist. secr., ii. 140.

[1199] La Place, 153.

[1200] Ibid., ubi supra; Baum, ii. 305.

[1201] Letter of the ambassador, Hurault de Bois-Taillé, July 12, 1561, Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 729. Hurault, however, suspected that some mischief, which time would reveal, lay concealed under this outward show of complaisance.

[1202] La Place, 153.

[1203] Ibid., ubi supra.

[1204] Compare Baum, ii. 302, 303.

[1205] Santacrucii, de civil. Galliæ diss. com., 1465: "Quod mirum in modum oderat episcopi Viterbensis et mores agrestes, et naturam subacerbam, semperque, ut diximus, male ominantem." Vargas, viewing the same personage from another point, was far more complimentary. Papiers d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 404, 405.

[1206] Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Relations des Ambassadeurs Vénitiens, ii. 88; Letter of Santa Croce, Poissy, Nov. 15, 1561, Lettres anecdotes écrites au card. Borromée par Prosper de Sainte-Croix, nonce du pape Pie IV. auprès de Catherine de Medicis, 1561-1565. (Aymon, Tous les synodes nat. (1710), i. 15.) Vargas, Spanish ambassador at the papal court, who feared that the legate might be induced to lend his influence to Navarre's scheme for procuring a restitution of his wife's domains, or an equivalent for them, besieged the pontiff with accounts of his scandalous intimacy with French heretics of rank. "Repetíle lo que otras vezes le havia dicho, y con quanto escándolo y ofension de la religion se tractava en Francia, estrechándose en amistad con Vandoma y almirante Chatiglon, obispo de Valencia, y los demas principales hereges, con gran desconsuelo y desfavor de los cathólicos; y de como no era hombre apto para una legacion semejante," etc. He accused him of already aiming at the pontifical see, as if it were now vacant, and urged his immediate recall. Letter of Vargas to Philip II. from Rome, Nov. 7, 1561; Papiers d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 403, 404; see also pp. 405, 406.

[1207] Examine the curious passage in Santacrucii, de civil. Galliæ diss. comment., 1470, 1471.

[1208] See the correspondence of Vargas with Philip II. (letters of Sept. 30, Oct. 3 and 7, 1561), Papiers d'état du card. Granvelle, vi. 342, 372, and 380; De Thou, iii. 78, 79; or the very full account of Prof. Soldan, i. 515-521.

[1209] Rel. di Marc' Antonio Barbaro, Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. 88, 89. "È proceduto esso ambasciatore con la regina e Navarra con parole quasi sempre aspre e severe, minacciando di guerra dal canto del re suo, et dicendo in faccia alle lor maestà parole assai gagliarde e pungenti, e levando al re di Navarra del tutto la speranza della ricompensa, stando le cose in quei termini, et ponendoli inanzi l'inimicizia di Filippo."

[1210] "Etenim si de ilia (spe) ejiceretur dubium non erat, quin se totum ad Calvinistas converteret, et qui cum pudore ac simultatione illis favebat, perfricta fronte eorum sectam ita promoveret, ut brevissimo tempore totum Galliæ regnum occuparet." Sanctacrucii, de civ. Gall. diss. comment., 1471.

[1211] Ibid., 1473.

[1212] Santacrucii, de civ. Galliæ diss. com., 1472, 1473. That the whole affair was planned in deceit and treachery, is patent not only from Santa Croce's account both in his letters and in his systematic treatise, but from the whole of the Vargas correspondence. Even when the Pope—much to the ambassador's disgust—thought of complying with Antoine's request to intercede with Philip for some indemnification for the loss of the kingdom of Navarre, he took the pains to explain that his urgency would not amount to importunity, much less to a command; his aim was only to feed Antoine with false hopes while France was in so precarious a situation: "esto seria por cumplir con Vandome y entretenerle, por estar Francia en los términos en que está," etc. Papiers d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, vi. 344.

[1213] De Thou, iii. 78, 79.

[1214] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 419 (the author of which, however, erroneously gives the end of November as the date of their departure); Jean de Serres, Commentarii de statu relig. et reipubl., i. 345 (who makes the same mistake); De Thou, iii. 99. "Cur autem aliquid adhuc spei habeam, illud etiam in causa est quod nudius tertius Guisiani omnes serio discesserunt, omnibus bonis invisi, ac plerisque etiam malis. Abiit quoque Turnonius et Conestabilis.... Probabile est aliquid simul moliri, sed tamen incerto eventu. De hoc intra paucos dies certi erimus, utinam ne nostro malo." Letter of Beza to Calvin, Oct. 21, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 110.

[1215] That the Huguenots were about this time as sanguine as their opponents were despondent, may be seen from the prediction of Languet (letter of October 9th), that unless the opposite party precipitated a war within two or three months, everything would be safe; so great would be the accession of strength that the reformers would actually be the strongest. At court everything tended in that direction, and the queen mother herself was not likely to try to stem the current. Martyr, it was reported, had several times brought tears to her eyes, when conversing with her. "However," dryly observes the diplomatist, "I am not over-credulous in these matters." Epist. secr., ii. 145.

[1216] Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, Paris, November 26, 1561, State Paper Office.

[1217] Others besides Jeanne were apprehensive. The Viscount de Gruz, in his memorial to Queen Elizabeth (Sept. 24, 1561), stated that the king's constitution was so bad that he was not likely to live long, for he ate and slept very little. His brothers were equally infirm in health. Monsieur D'Orléans had a very bad cough, and the physicians feared that he had the disease of his late brother, Francis; while Monsieur D'Anjou had been ill for more than a year, and was dying from day to day. State Paper Office.

[1218] Letters of Beza, Oct. 21st and Nov. 4th, ubi supra. "Tantum abest ut impetrarim (abeundi facultatem) ut etiam regina ipsa me accersitum expresse rogarit ut saltem ad tempus manerem."

[1219] "Nam ex singulis parlamentis duo huc evocantur ad diem decembris vicesimum," etc. Beza to Calvin, Oct. 30, Baum, ii., App., 117; Histoire ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 418.

[1220] "Je ny voulu faillir de vous advertir," writes the Prince of Condé in an autograph postscript of a letter (of Oct. 10th) thanking the magistrates of Zurich for Martyr's visit to France, "des entreprinses des Seigneurs de Guyse et de Nemours, ennemys de la vraye religion, qui, voyants que soub le regne du roy de France, le regne de Jesus Christ sestoit tellement advance que facillement lon pouvoit appercepvoir que la tyrannie de Lantechrist de Romme seroit en brief totallement dechassee du dit pays, apres sestre bande du coste du Roy d'Espaigne, pour maintenir la dicte tyrannie papale delibererent de desrober et emmener en Espaigne, au Roy Phelippe, le second fils de France monsieur d'Orleans, esperans que soub le nom du dit jeusne prince frere du Roy ils auroient occasion de faire la guerre en France et contre les Evangelistes, estimans que bientost le pape donneroit le royaulme de France au premier occupant selon sa Tyrannique coustume," etc. Baum, ii., App., 102, 103. Nemours, after his conspiracy was discovered, fled from court. He wrote, however, disclaiming any ulterior object in his invitations to the young Prince of Orleans, to whom he had in jest proposed to go with him to Spain.

[1221] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 419-421. Cf. Beza to Calvin, Nov. 4th, Baum, ii., App., 120.

[1222] Letter of Beza, Nov. 4th, ubi supra; "Regina nescio quo modo libenter me videt, quod est apud multos testata, et re ipsa sum expertus. Ideo cupiunt nostri proceres me his manere, quasi fidei et obedientias nostrarum Ecclesiarum obsidem tantisper dum in futuro illo conventu aliquid certi constituatur, et ipsi conventui me volunt interesse."

[1223] Beza's letters, apud Baum, ii., App., 117, 121, 122; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 418.

[1224] "Graces à Dieu, les choses sont bien changées en peu d'heure, estant maintenant faicts guardiens des assemblées ceux-là mesme qui nous menoyent en prison." Postscript to Beza's letter of Nov. 4th, Baum, ii., App., 122.

[1225] "C'est merveille des auditeurs des leçons de Monsieur Calvin; jestime quils sont journellement plus de mille." Letter of De Beaulieu, Geneva, Oct. 3, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 92.

[1226] Letter of De Beaulieu, ubi supra, 91.

[1227] "Mais ne nous a esté possible jamais recouvrer ung ministre, quelque diligence que nous avons faicte, seulement par quelqu'un de nous faisons faire des prières ainsi que par vostre Eglise sont dressées." Lettre de l'église de Foix à la Vénérable Compagnie (1561); Gaberel, i., Pièces justif., 165-167.

[1228] Lettre de Fornelet à, l'église de Neufchatel, Oct. 6, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 95-100, Bulletin, xii. 361-366; Letter of Fornelet to Calvin, of the same date, Bulletin, etc., xiv. 365.

[1229] Letter of De Beaulieu, ubi supra.

[1230] Letter of Jacques Sorel for the "classe" of Troyes, Oct. 13, 1561, Bulletin, xii. 352-355, Baum, ii., App., 103, 104.

[1231] Otherwise, 15,000 or 20,000 Huguenots, of whom 2,000 or 3,000 were armed horsemen, would doubtless have come together, and possibly seized some church edifices. The prince issued a very severe order against future assailants. Letter of Languet, Oct. 17, 1561. Epist. secr., ii. 149, 150. Ordonnance de M. le Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon, lieutenant-général de sa Majesté en la ville de Paris, publié le 16 Octobre 1561, Mém. de Condé, i. 57-59. Bruslart, as usual, misrepresents the whole affair, i. 56. Languet was present with the Protestants.

[1232] Languet, ii. 155.

[1233] Mémoires de Philippi (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat), 624, 625: "Le populaire des fidèles continuoit de mettre en pièces les sepulchres, déterrer les morts, et faire mille follies.... Le peuple porta sa haine jusqu'aux bennets quarrés, et les gens de justice furent obligés de prendre des chapeaux ou bonnets ronds."

[1234] As a single instance out of many, I cite a passage from a letter of Pierre Viret to Calvin (Nismes, Oct. 31, 1561), illustrative of the relation of the Huguenot ministers to the acts of mistaken zeal with which this period abounded: "Hic apud nos omnia sunt pacatissima, Dei beneficio. Ego, quoad possum, studeo in officio continere non solum nostros Nemausenses [inhabitants of Nismes], sed etiam vicinos omnes: sed interea multis in locis et templa occupantur, et idola dejiciuntur sine nostro consilio. Ego omnia Domino committo, qui pro sua bona voluntate cuncta moderabitur." Baum, ii., App., 120.

[1235] Letter from St. Germain, Nov. 4, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 121. "Denique nostros potius quam adversaries metuo."

[1236] Mém. de Condé, i. 67, etc.; Letter of Santa Croce (Nov. 15, 1561), in Cimber et Danjou, vi. 5, 6, and Aymon, i. 5.

[1237] Santa Croce, ubi supra. Of the Cardinal of Ferrara's apprehensions and the grounds for them, Shakerley, the legate's own organist, and a spy of the English ambassador, secretly wrote to Throkmorton from the French court at St. Germain: "Here is new fire, here is new green wood reeking; new smoke and much contrary wind blowing against Mr. Holy Pope; for in all haste the King of Navarre with his tribe will have another council, and the Cardinal [of Ferrara] stamps and takes on like a madman, and goeth up and down here to the Queen, there to the Cardinal of Tournon, with such unquieting of himself as all the house marvels at it." Shakerley to Throkmorton, Dec. 16, 1561, State Paper Office. Printed in Froude, vii. 391. When a "holy friar" was preaching before the court, his sermon "being without salt," the hearers laughed, the king played with his dog, Catharine went to sleep, and Ferrara "plucked down his cap." Same to same, Dec. 14, 1561, "two o'clock after midnight." This industrious correspondent, who employed the small hours of the night in transmitting to the English ambassador his master's secrets, confessed to Throkmorton that he had no belief in the depth of Ferrara's assumed concern, having "so marked the living of priests" that he believed that "whensoever they are sure to have the same livings that they have without being troubled, they care not an the Pope were hanged, with all his indulgences," Letter of Dec. 16, 1561. State Paper Office.

[1238] Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 60, etc.

[1239] Ibid., i. 65; a highly colored, partisan, and consequently inaccurate account is given by Claude Haton, i. 214-221. T. Shakerley, in his letter of Dec. 16th, relates the friar's interview with Catharine, who, on seeing the fellow's boldness and the strength of his popularity among the merchants of Paris (at least sixty of whom escorted him), easily accepted his disclaimers, told him "she was much content to hear that his preaching was good, without giving trouble to the people," and bade him "go his way and preach and fear no harm, for it should always please her son and her that the people should be taught as in old time they had been preached unto." The intercession of the Parisians, accompanied "by offers of forty thousand crowns pledge of his forthcoming," Shakerley affirms, "has given such a blow to the preachers of the other side [the Huguenots] that there is wonderful change." State Paper Office.

[1240] "Y quando leyó aquel passo de la letra (que si la reyna madre no quisiesse el ayuda que se le offrescia, la darie V. M. á quien se la pidiesse para favorescer la religion y conservarle en la verdad) reparó un rato y hechó á V. M. muchas bendiciones, diziendo que aquello era un principe veramente cathólico y defensor de la religion, y que no esperava ménos de V. M." Vargas to Philip II., Nov. 7, 1561, Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle, vi. 399. The Pope had agreed to assist the orthodox party with sixty galleys (Ibid., vi. 437), and he cared little if the French knew that he was in league with Philip (Ibid., vi. 401)—their fears might serve as a check upon their insolence.

[1241] "Qui premier voulsist monstrer les dens audist Sieur de Vendosme et ses adhérens."

[1242] "Rapport secret du secrétaire Courtewille, et fondement de son envoy devers Madame la duchesse de Parma ès Pays-Bas en Decembre, 1561." Papiers d'état du card. de Granvelle, vi. 433, etc. Letter of Margaret of Parma to Philip II., Dec. 13, 1561, Ibid., vi. 444, seq.

[1243] "E s'avesse quello spirito che aveva il padre, o il padre avesse avuto la presente fortuna, la Francia non saria più Francia."

[1244] Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 558-562.

[1245] Discours sur le Saceagement des Eglises Catholiques ... en l'an 1562. Par F. Claude de Sainctes, 1563. Reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, iv. 371. Claude Haton, i. 177, 178. I need not stop to refute these partial statements. They are not surprising, coming as they do from writers who accept all the vile stories of Huguenot midnight orgies with unquestioning faith.

[1246] It is described in an "arrêt" of parliament as "une maison size au fauxbourg S. Marcel, rue de Mouffetard, vulgairement dicte la maison du Patriarche, pour ce que un patriarche d'Alexandrie déchassé par les barbares la fit anciennement bastir, ayant entrée sur la grande rue dudict S. Marcel." Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv., Preuves, 806.

[1247] De Thou (iii. 100) is much below the mark in stating the number at about two thousand; the author of the "Histoire véritable de la mutinerie" does not seem to exaggerate when he estimates it at twelve thousand to thirteen thousand. The congregation was unusually large, the day being the festival of St. John, and a holiday. The day before, the Protestants had for the first time been permitted to assemble on a feast-day, and Beza himself had preached without interruption to crowded audiences at Popincourt and at the Patriarche. He had again preached on the morning of St. John's Day. Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec, 30, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 148.

[1248] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 422.

[1249] That the disturbance was premeditated is proved by the fact, attested by the Histoire véritable, p. 60, that the precious possessions of the church had been removed from St. Médard a few hours before its occurrence. Its object was clearly revealed by the haste with which the parliament despatched a messenger to St. Germain, to solicit the king in council to revoke the permission heretofore granted the Protestants to meet in the suburbs of Paris. Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 422.

[1250] With this scene the connection of the "Patriarche" with the reformed services disappears from history. It had been let to the Protestants by a merchant of Lucca, who was himself only a tenant. In the ensuing summer the owner, moved by displeasure for the impiety of the religious services it had witnessed, made a gift of the "Patriarche" to the parliament, asking that it might be employed for the relief of the poor and other charitable purposes. Arrêt of parliament, Aug. 18, 1562, Félibien, iv., Preuves, 806. Of course, Saint Médard was suitably propitiated by solemn expiatory processions and pageantry.

[1251] And with every indignity on the part of the people. See extracts from "Journal de 1562," in Baum, ii. 480, 481. The authorities I have made use of in the account of the St. Médard riot given in the text are: "Histoire véritable de la mutinerie, tumulte et sédition, faite par les Prestres Sainct Médard contre les Fideles, le Samedy xxvii iour de Decembre, 1561" (in Recueil des choses mémorables, 822, etc.; Mém. de Condé, ii. 541, etc.; Cimber et Danjou, iv. 49, etc.), a contemporaneous pamphlet written by an eye-witness; other documents inserted in Mém. de Condé, among them the Journal de Bruslart, i. 68; Letter of Beza, who was present, to Calvin, Dec. 30, 1561, apud Baum, ii. App., 148-150; Hist. ecclés., i. 421; De Thou, iii. 100; Claude Haton, i. 179, etc.; Castelnau, l. iii., c. 5; J. de Serres, i. 346; Claude de Sainctes, Saccagement (in Cimber et Danjou). It is almost superfluous to add that the Roman Catholic and Protestant authorities differ widely in the coloring given to the event. If any reader should be inclined to think that I have given undue weight to the Huguenot representations, let him examine the Roman Catholic De Thou—here, as everywhere, candid and impartial.

[1252] De Thou, iii. (liv. xxix.) 118-123; Eecueil des choses mém., 686-695; Mémoires de Condé, ii. 606, etc.

[1253] Abbé Bruslart accuses Chancellor L'Hospital of packing the convention with delegates of the parliaments who were his creatures; "La pluspart desquels avoient esté éleus et choisis par monsieur le Chancelier De l'Hospital, qui n'estoit sans grande suspition." Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 70.

[1254] Strange to say, Santa Croce employs, in his letters to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, the very same despairing expressions as those for the use of which in his Latin commentaries he condemns Gualtieri. He wishes to be recalled; he declares: "Che questo regno è nell' estrema ruina, che non vi è speranza alcuna, che si vede cascar a occhiate, che tutto è infetto, in capite et in membris," and that he does not want to be present at the funeral of this wretched kingdom. Letter of January 7, 1562, Aymon, i. 21, 22; Cimber et Danjou, vi. 16,17.

[1255] Ibid., ubi supra.

[1256] Letter of Santa Croce, Jan. 15, 1562, Aymon, i. 35-40.

[1257] Of forty-nine opinions, twenty-two were given in favor of an unconditional grant of the Protestant demand for churches, sixteen for a simple toleration of their religious assemblies and worship, such as had been informally practised for the last two months, while eleven stood out boldly for the continued hanging and burning of heretics. Among the most determined of these last were the Constable and Cardinal Tournon. Much to their regret, they saw themselves compelled to acquiesce in a liberal policy which they detested, in order to avoid opening the doors wide to the establishment of Protestantism in France. See Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 499. Compare, on the course of the proceedings, Beza's letters and those of Santa Croce, ubi supra.

[1258] See the text of the Edict of January, in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. 89-91; Mém. de Condé, iii. 8-15; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. ii., t. i. 124-128; J. de Serres, etc.