History of the Protestants of France, from the commencement of the Reformation to the present time

by G. de Félice

To this the king could only reply by new exhortations to patience. “You shall have satisfaction,” said he to them, “when I am master at home.” Truly it was very difficult to exercise patience in the unhappy condition of the Reformed. Excluded from all offices, maltreated, persecuted, without anywhere being able to invoke the Almighty in peace, without security in their own houses, having no longer their ancient protector, and forbidden to name another, they at length resolved, with the tacit authority of the king, to manage their own affairs, and convoked political assemblies. The first was held at Sainte Foy, in the month of May, 1594.

These assemblies must not be confounded with the synods. In the synods, the clergy and laity were equal in number, and were always occupied with the interests of the Church. In the political assemblies, the laity were greatly in the majority, and they treated also concerning state affairs.

Assemblies of this kind had been held during the religious wars, but they then took a more regular organization, and adopted the plan of uniting at periodical intervals.

France was divided into ten departments, each of which named a deputy to form the General Council. Their distinction of three orders was borrowed from the States-General. The General Council was to be composed of four noblemen, four members of the Third Estate, and of two pastors. When the number of members was raised to thirty, there were twelve delegates of the nobility, twelve representatives of the Third Estate, and six clergymen. The president was to be a layman, the vice-president an ecclesiastic. One half of the council was re-elected every six months. Dukes, lieutenant-generals, and other personages of high rank, took part in the deliberations without being deputies, provided they were not objected to by the assembly.

The provincial councils were next in authority to the General Council, and were composed of from five to seven members, chosen equally from the three orders. They were to include at least one resident governor and a clergyman.

These councils were to promote peace between those of their own religion, to levy rates for the necessities of the cause, and to regulate the disposal of them, to watch over the stores and munitions of fortified towns; in a word, to do everything that was necessary for the defence of their common interests. The deputies took the oath of obedience, and the members of the Church were obliged to respect the decisions of the general and private assemblies. A permanent fund of forty-five thousand crowns was supplied by the contributions of the faithful.

The General Council received memorials and complaints from the provincial councils, sent them to court, discussed the terms of the new edicts with the commissioners of the king, and sought to establish the free exercise of religion upon a more solid basis.

Judging according to present ideas, nothing could be more contrary to good order than this organization; it was, as we have already remarked, a state within a state. But to appreciate as we ought the institution of these political assemblies, we must recollect that the Reformed were excluded in France from the common right. The intolerant dogmas of (Roman) Catholicism did not recognise them as Frenchmen. They were looked upon as foreigners, or rather as enemies, and were treated as such. The king was obliged to capitulate with some of his subjects at the expense of the others. The pope demanded their extermination. The bishops had forced Henry to say at his coronation, “I will, in good faith, do all in my power to drive all heretics, denounced by the Church, out of my jurisdiction and territory;” and this was only a mitigated formula, that the priests had sanctioned after much hesitation. Public authority attacked and condemned the Reformed as malefactors. If then they established a distinct society amongst themselves, it is because they were cut off from society in general; and it would be absurd, as well as odious, to accuse those in the name of the law, who had been put out of its pale.

The Leaguers had also formed a state within the state, but with this difference, that they were associated together in order to oppress the Calvinists, whilst the latter united that they might not be oppressed; and cruel experience proved to them, under the reign of Louis XIV., that in losing their political organization, they were exposed to the loss of everything.

The council of the king heard with astonishment of the decision of the assembly of Sainte Foy. It had imagined that the great Calvinist body, deprived of its ancient protector, would be destroyed. Catherine of Medicis and Charles IX. fell into the same error after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Seeing the Reformed rise up under the strokes of persecution to take a firmer attitude than ever, statesmen began to think that it was necessary to temporize with them.