Religion of the king, religion of the court, religion of the clergy, religion of the people and of the soldiers,—what wretched mockery was it all! Manners were on the same level; the cardinal of Lorraine, and the greater part of the prelates, impudently violated all the laws of chastity. The Balafré was leaving a night debauch when he was assassinated. Margaret of Valois, the princess of Condé, the duchesses of Nemours, of Guise, of Montpensier, of Nevers, led a life of the foulest immorality. Two of them having caused the heads of their lovers to be cut off, kissed and embalmed them, and each kept that of her own lover among her love-tokens. It is well known in what manner the duchess of Montpensier, sister of Henry of Guise, nerved the arm of Jacques Clément.
Everywhere there was a hideous admixture of blood and superstition. The great nobles employed hired assassins and duellists, who killed each other as a pastime, without remorse or pity; every day two were pitted against two, four against four, a hundred against a hundred; and the address of an assassin or poisoner could then be as easily procured as that of an hotel-keeper in the present day.
As a last instance, the assassin, the regicide, Jacques Clément, was canonized from all the pulpits as “the most blessed child of Dominique, the holy martyr of Jesus Christ.” His portrait was placed on the altars with these words: “Saint Jacques Clément, pray for us.” When his mother came to Paris, the nuns addressed her in the language of the Evangelist: “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.” And Pope Sixtus V., more infamous still, declared in full consistory, that the action of the martyr Jacques Clément might be compared, as regarded the safety of the world, to the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ.[73]
A church that has uttered such blasphemies by the mouth of its chief, should for ever seek pardon both from God and man. It should moreover bless that principle of tolerance, which has imposed upon it both the Reformation and philosophy; for it is this alone, which prevents its relapse into the degraded condition of former times.
XVIII.
Religion was but a secondary matter in the war between Henry IV. and the League, and in the other events of this epoch. We need not relate them, since they belong to the general history of the country, and not to our special subject.
Thirty years earlier, the advent of a Calvinist prince to the throne of France would perhaps have made the Reformed the dominant religion; but in 1589 all was changed. Far from deriving advantage, the affairs of the Reformed were compromised by the event. Henry of Navarre, as lieutenant of Henry III., could dictate his own conditions; it was necessary that as king, he should accept those of the (Roman) Catholics. He had their desertion to dread, whilst he did not fear that he should be abandoned by his co-religionists. He therefore did little for his own party, but much for that of his adversaries, according to that old court maxim, that “enemies should be gratified at the expense of those friends whose support may be depended upon.”
Before taking an oath of fidelity, the (Roman) Catholic nobles demanded that he should again enter the communion of the Romish church. It was the Marquis d’O, superintendent of the finances, who conveyed to him this message—a singular choice for a religious mission! This former creature of Henry III., one of the most contemptible and despised of men, had disgusted the courtiers themselves by the barefaced double-dealing of his language and conduct. He, however, protested in the name of the nobility, that he would rather throw himself upon his sword than allow (Roman) Catholicism to be ruined in France.
Henry IV. refused to change his religion all at once. “Would it be more agreeable to you,” said he to the (Roman) Catholic nobles, “to have a king without a God? Could you place confidence in the faith of an atheist? And in the day of battle would you follow the banner of a perjurer and an apostate with alacrity?” After long discussions he only promised that he would seek instruction during the next six months.
These words were regarded in two very different ways. The promise of seeking instruction seemed to the (Roman) Catholics equivalent to his re-entering the pale of the church of Rome; to the Reformed, on the contrary, it appeared that they only related to the duty of examining anew the points of controversy and the sincere adoption of the side of truth. As to Henry IV. it appears that he had already determined to become instructed, not by the doctors, but by the course of events.