One article of this treaty had decreed the early convocation of the States-General. They eventually assembled at Blois, in the month of December, 1576; but no longer with the spirit of the States of Orleans. A great part of the nobility had again joined the (Roman) Catholic church, and the misfortunes of the kingdom had ulcerated the heart of the citizens. The deputies of the three orders agreed to demand the unity of religion. They prayed the king to command the ministers, deacons, superintendents, schoolmasters, and other teachers, to quit the kingdom, in default of which they should be proceeded against as guilty of a capital crime.
Unity, thus expressed, was nothing else than war. But to make war, money was necessary; and when this was alluded to, each of the three orders excused itself. The clergy declared that they had been very much impoverished by the disorders of the kingdom, and could give nothing; the nobility only offered their swords; and the Third Estate commissioned its speaker to say, that it contemplated the reunion of all the king’s subjects by gentle means, without war—a great and puerile mockery.
The Calvinists, however, at the news of these resolutions, had again recourse to arms; but, deprived of the aid of the malcontents of the (Roman) Catholic party, and disunited among themselves, their plans did not prosper. The Consistorialists, this time, were the most determined, because with them it had become a question of losing all, or saving all, in the exercise of their religion. Earnest remonstrances were therefore addressed to the nobles by the consistory of La Rochelle. Theodore de Bèze wrote from Geneva: “I cannot in good conscience see how we can consent to limit the spirit of God to certain places; above all, to shut it out from the towns, which do not die and change, like the hearts and houses of princes. I cannot bring my mind to believe that God either can or will bless such agreements, and I would counsel you to place your heads on the block, and to suffer everything without resistance, if it must come to that, rather than approve of such conditions.” These complaints of the Consistorials were disregarded, and the nobles of the party signed a peace at Bergerac, in the month of September, 1577. On the 8th of October following, appeared the Edict of Poitiers, which only granted to the mass of the Reformed the simple liberty of conscience, with admission to public offices. The exercise of religion was limited to the places, in which it was professed when the treaty was under signature. Henry III. boasted of this edict as his own work; he liked to say, “My edict, my treaty;” but it was no better observed than those which had preceded it.
XVI.
Catherine de Medicis had conceived a method of overcoming the Huguenot nobles, during the peace, whom it had been found impossible to vanquish by arms; and this was by debauching them. She passed through the provinces with a numerous troop of maids of honour (sometimes to the number of one hundred and fifty), who were called her flying squadron. Everywhere throughout her progress, balls, fêtes, gallantries, and intrigues took place, in the midst of which the former austerity of the companions of Coligny was lost.
It was thus, under the pretext of conducting Margaret of Valois to the house of her husband, the king of Navarre, that Catherine set out, in the month of July, 1578, for the southern provinces. The Béarnese king, who had too soon forgotten the lessons of his mother during his long residence at the Louvre, could not resist the seductions with which he was surrounded. “The court of the king of Navarre,” says Agrippa d’Aubigné, “was renowned for its brave nobility and virtuous ladies. Idleness attracted vice to it, as heat draws serpents. The queen of Navarre took the rust off their wits, and let it gather on their arms. She taught the king her husband that a cavalier was without a soul when he was without an amour.”[70]
The same historian relates that Catherine de Medicis affected a style of language borrowed from the Bible. She had composed a vocabulary of expressions in use among the most rigid of the Reformed, and made use of them, sometimes as a matter of policy, and sometimes in derision. “She had learned by heart,” says he, “several phrases, which she termed Consistorial; as, to approve of the counsel of Gamaliel; or, beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace; to call the king, the anointed of the Lord, the image of the living God, with several sentences of the Epistle of St. Peter, in favour of dominion; she would often exclaim, Let God judge between you and us! I call the Eternal to witness! Before God and his angels! This style, which the ladies called among themselves the language of Canaan, was studied in the evening, when the queen retired to rest, and not without merriment.”[71]
Before and after the fêtes, conferences were held, from which resulted the explicative Treaty of Nérac, signed on the 28th of February, 1579. It added nothing essential to the Edict of Poitiers. The king of Navarre obtained only some fresh places of safety in Guienne and Languedoc, on condition that he should only retain them for six months.
An intrigue of the court caused arms again to be taken up, and this ridiculous quarrel was named the war of the amorous; but the great body of the Reformed took no part in it. It terminated by the signing of a peace at the castle of Fleix, in Périgord, on the 26th of November, 1580, which treaty confirmed the Edict of Poitiers; the Béarnese king, however, conquered, the appanage being given as a dowry to his wife in Agenois and Quercy.