[3] Huguenots, the name given to the early adherents of the Reformation in France. The origin of the word has been variously accounted for, but it was most probably introduced from Germany as a corruption of the German-Swiss Eidgenossen, confederates, or those bound together by an oath. Like many other names it was first given by opponents as a badge of reproach, and subsequently became honourable from its associations. The movement of the Reformation made its appearance in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century; and at the period when Luther was defending its principles before the Diet of Worms, Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, Lefevre, and Farel were labouring zealously for the same cause in France. At first the new doctrines, which seemed to be chiefly directed against the more open sins and derelictions of the clergy, enjoyed the toleration of the king, Francis I. and his sister Margaret of Valois, the queen of Navarre, was an active supporter of the cause. As it progressed however, the alarm and anger of the clergy became fully aroused, and as some of its manifestations had given offence to the king, a determined effort was made to extirpate it by means of fire and sword. In 1535 a solemn procession in vindication of the faith was made at Paris, in which the king walked bareheaded and bearing a taper; as part of the proceedings six Lutherans were burned, having their tongues cut out and being affixed to a movable gallows, which alternately rose and fell over a fire kindled beneath. This was followed by many executions of a similar kind, and by the more wholesale slaughters which exterminated the Vaudois of Provence; but in spite of these persecutions the number of those who adopted the principles of the Reformation continually increased. Under the influence of Calvin, who took very great interest in the work of the Reformation in France, the French Protestants about the middle of the sixteenth century began to organize themselves into churches, and to unite these churches into groups or districts for the purposes of mutual aid and counsel. The first French Protestant church was established at Paris in 1555, and very soon afterwards others were established in most of the large towns where the principles of the Reformation had obtained followers. These churches were established according to the Presbyterian form, a pastor being appointed as the leader, with elders and deacons to assist in the government and worship, each church being independent of the rest, though several churches might combine in any movement for their mutual benefit or for the promotion of their common cause. The first synod of the reformed churches was held at Paris in 1559. At this assembly, to which eleven churches sent deputies, a confession of faith and a series of articles of discipline were drawn up and issued, and these, with a few alterations, became subsequently the doctrinal and ecclesiastical standards of the Protestants of France. It is not easy to estimate the number of the Huguenots at this period, but according to Beza they were not less than 400,000, and the party included about one-third of the nobility of France. The persecutions of the Roman Catholic party, however, had become more fierce and intolerable as the number of the Protestants increased, and at last, driven to desperation, the Huguenots took up arms in their own defence and sought to change the government in order that they might gain liberty of worship. In February, 1560, at a meeting at Nantes, they resolved to petition the king, Francis II., for liberty of worship and for the removal of the two brothers, Francis duke of Guise, and Charles of Lorraine, cardinal and archbishop of Rheims, who were the real rulers of the kingdom and the foremost in the persecution. In the event of a refusal they conspired to seize the person of the king and appoint their own leader, Louis I., prince of Bourbon Condé, as governor-general of the kingdom. The conspiracy failed completely, and a terrible vengeance was exacted: some 1200 of the Huguenots were slaughtered without investigation or trial, their bodies being flung into the Loire until the stream was almost choked by the number. In January, 1562, owing to political changes in France, Catherine de Médicis being obliged to rely upon the aid of the Protestant party in defence of her son Charles IX., who was under age, an edict was issued which gave the Huguenot noblemen the right to the free exercise of their religion on their own estates. A few months only after this a party of Huguenot worshippers in the little town of Vassy, in the province of Champagne, were attacked by the Duke of Guise and his followers, sixty being slain upon the spot, and 200 more severely, some mortally, wounded. For this butchery he was received with acclamation by the people of Paris, and emboldened by his reception he seized upon the persons of the young king and the queen-mother, and proclaimed the Protestants rebels against the royal authority. The latter rallied round the standard raised by Condé at Orleans, and the civil war was commenced which was to devastate France for nearly thirty years. At the outset the Huguenots were defeated at Rouen, 11th September, 1562, and again at Dreux, 19th December, the same year. In 1563 the treaty of Amboise was concluded, but its stipulations were observed by neither party, and the war was soon recommenced, the Huguenots being again defeated 10th November, 1567, at St. Denis. Reinforced by aid from Germany, they were able to threaten Paris, but their leader Condé allowed himself to be again duped by Catherine de Médicis, and signed the peace of Longjumeau, "leaving his party at the mercy of their enemies, with no other security than the word of an Italian woman." The queen-mother, as soon as the pressure of danger was removed, promptly recommenced the persecution, and within a few months several thousands of the Huguenots were either assassinated or publicly executed. Condé and Coligny fled to La Rochelle, where they were joined by the Queen of Navarre and her son Henry, afterwards Henry IV. of France, at the head of 4000 men. Assistance was also received from Germany and England, and the third war of religion was begun. The Huguenots were defeated 13th March, 1569, at Jarnac, and again at Moncontour, 3rd October, 1569, but they managed to take Nîmes, relieve La Rochelle, and gain the victory of Luçon. Their successes led again to the proposal of terms of peace; and a treaty, in which an amnesty and the free exercise of their religion everywhere except at Paris was granted to the Protestants, was signed at St. Germain-en-Laye, 8th August, 1570.
As with the treaties previously signed, the queen-mother and the leaders of the Roman Catholic party had no intention of observing its conditions, but on the contrary they sought to obtain by treachery that which they had failed to procure by force of arms. In two years their plans were ripe for execution, and the leaders of the Huguenot party having been enticed to Paris, a general massacre of the Protestants was commenced on St. Bartholomew's Day, 24th August, 1572. In the ghastly slaughter that followed, according to the lowest computation, 30,000 of the Protestants of France were destroyed, but many historians place the number killed at a much higher figure. Most of the leaders of the Huguenot party were destroyed in the massacre, but the remainder rallied their scattered forces, and a fresh war was commenced which continued with but few intermissions until the accession of Henry of Navarre in 1589. His reign marks a tranquil period in the history of the French Protestants, and in 1598 they obtained the celebrated Edict of Nantes, which though it granted them less than they had anticipated, was yet for a long period the foundation of their liberty. The period succeeding the reign of Henry IV. was marked by numerous outbreaks on the part of the Huguenots, who were distrustful of the plans and purposes of the French court, and ultimately Cardinal Richelieu determined to finally break their power by the capture of their chief stronghold, La Rochelle. This he effected in 1628, and with its fall and the subsequent surrender of the remaining Protestant towns the religious wars of France came finally to an end. Still the Huguenots were left in the enjoyment of freedom of religion, and being excluded from the court and service of the state, they devoted themselves to manufacture and commerce until they became the industrial leaders of the nation. They followed agriculture in the rural districts, and their farms were among the finest in France. The wine trade of Guienne, the cloths of Caen, the maritime trade on the sea-board of Normandy, the manufactures in the north-western provinces, the silk trade of Lyons, with many other branches of commerce, were almost entirely carried on by the Huguenots, who bore a high reputation for industry and integrity even among their enemies. The consolidation of the power of the king was, however, fraught with danger to the liberties of the Protestants, and as Louis XIV. in his declining years became morbidly superstitious, he sought, under the direction of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor Lachaise, to atone for his own crimes by the suppression of heresy. At first bribery was tried, and a regular fund of secret-service money was set apart for procuring conversions. Then persecution was recommenced, and many thousands were terrified into abjuring their religion by the means of the Dragonnades.
Finally, in 1685 Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, and followed up the revocation with laws of terrific severity against Protestantism. All Protestant worship was forbidden under penalty of arrest and confiscation of property. Ministers were to leave the kingdom within fourteen days unless they became converted. All Protestant schools were closed, and all children born after the passing of the law were to be baptized and brought up as Roman Catholics; all marriages, unless celebrated by the Roman Catholic clergy, were declared null, and the Protestant laity were strictly prohibited from leaving the kingdom.
The provisions of the edict were carried out with relentless rigour, and a desperate flight of the Huguenots ensued. Many thousands had been forced to emigrate by the dragonnades, but now the flight became wholesale, though every effort to check it was made by the authorities. Vauban, who wrote a year after the revocation, estimated the loss of France at 100,000 inhabitants, 60,000,000 francs in specie, 9,000 sailors, 12,000 veterans, 600 officers, and her most flourishing branches of manufacture and trade. Sismondi considers the loss to have exceeded 300,000 men, while some modern estimates put the number lost during the whole period of the persecution at not less than 1,000,000. A large number abjured their religion, but a remnant remained who neither fled nor abjured, and whose endurance and determination during the long years of persecution that followed form one of the most remarkable of the records of religious history. The loss of France was the enrichment of other lands, and England, America, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Holland all profited by the advent of the emigrants. It is estimated that during the ten years that followed the revocation nearly 80,000 of the Huguenots established themselves in England, and their influence upon the trade and manufactures of the country was both widespread and lasting. The long windows of the silk-weavers' houses still mark the quarter of Spitalfields, London, where not so very long since a considerable French colony, with English assistants, drove a thriving trade, though not a weaver is now to be found there.
The majority of the Huguenots, however, became merged in the general population of England, and their descendants heartily accepted the change of nationality. Many of the latter have since attained to eminence in their adopted country, and are to be found among the leaders of the nation in all branches of its activity. Similar results may be traced in other nations where the refugees took up their abode, and it is said that when the Emperor of Germany rode into Paris at the head of his victorious troops at the close of the war in 1871, not less than eighty members of his personal staff were descendants of the Huguenots who had been driven by persecution from France.
During the early part of the eighteenth century the rigour of the persecution was maintained, but gradually the spirit of the age began to be averse to such methods of maintaining the power of the priesthood, and the interference of Voltaire, after the judicial murder of John Calas, did much towards bringing the persecution to an end. In 1787 an edict of Louis XVI. restored civil rights to the Huguenots, and the Revolution of 1789 and the passing later of the Code Napoleon gave them equal rights with Roman Catholics. At the present time the Protestants of France number about 500,000, and many of their pastors receive a small salary from the state. They nevertheless enjoy a considerable amount of self-government, and they have an excellent reputation as industrious and orderly citizens. In the Protestant churches of France, as in those of other countries, there is a tendency to divide over the questions arising from the progress of scriptural and historical criticism. Some of the leaders are well known for the liberalism of their ideas, and for the work they have done in connection with the advancement of the science of theology, while others, fearing the Rationalizing tendencies of modern studies, cling more closely to the Calvinistic standards of their forefathers. [See "History of the Rise of the Huguenots," by Prof. M. Baird, 1880.]
[4] The friendship of the Bishop would account for Mignon's envy towards Grandier.
[5] When and under what circumstances confession, either public or private, was first deemed absolutely necessary for the remission of sins is a subject of controversy. Innocent III., in the fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215 (Canon 21), made confession (meaning auricular or private) obligatory upon every adult person once a year; and that continues to be one of the rules of the Roman Catholic church to the present day. The Council of Trent, in its Catechism, defines it to be "a declaration by the penitent of his sins made to a priest in order to receive the penance and absolution." Penitence, therefore, consists of four parts—confession, contrition, penance, and absolution; and it is a positive doctrine of the same church, that without the concurrence of all these parts or conditions the sacrament is null and void. The penance which the priest imposes consists generally of satisfaction to be given if the penitent has injured any one in his property, honour, &c., in a manner that can admit of reparation, and also of prayers, abstinence, or other religious practices to be performed. The secrecy imposed on confessors is strict and unconditional; whatever be the crime of which a penitent may accuse himself, they are solemnly bound to keep it secret, under the most severe denunciations and penalties, both here and hereafter, that of excommunication included. The box in which the priest sits in the church to hear the penitent is called a confessional. But the act of confession may be performed out of church, in private houses, or in any place, in short, of which the bishop approves, provided it be not within hearing of any person except the priest and the penitent. The Greek Church retains the practice of auricular confession, but differs from that of Rome in the form of the absolution. The reformed churches do not as a rule encourage the practice, and in Scotland it is not even recognized. In the Church of England, although admitted by the Prayer Book, private confession has long been viewed with extreme suspicion, but of late years attempts have been made by a certain section to revive it.
[6] The reference is evidently to Mark XVI., p. 17 and 18.
End of Vol. I.