The sittings lasted twenty days. An order resulted, which, while giving an amnesty for the faults committed on either side, and inviting the priests no longer to excite the people, forbade the public meetings of the religion until the reunion of a national council, under pain of confiscation and banishment. This order, which was only adopted by a majority of three voices, bore the name of the Edict of July.
The (Roman) Catholic party congratulated itself upon having obtained a great victory, and the Duke de Guise said, on coming out of the court of the Parliament: “To maintain this edict, my sword shall never be sheathed.” But was it not madness to hope that men, who for forty years had braved the scaffold and the stake, would hesitate before the pain of banishment? What followed will show; France had yet to go through many terrible catastrophes before the two parties were disposed to make peace on more equitable conditions.
BOOK II.
FROM THE OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY TO THE EDICT OF NANTES.
(1561-1598.)
I.
All the recent statutes upon matters of religion were only provisional. They announced the approaching reunion of a council, which was to close the controversies definitively; and this was soon a general cry throughout France.
The idea was not new. From the moment of the Reformation, Germany had demanded the convocation of an Œcumenical and altogether free council. The popes had long refused; they remembered the great gatherings of Constance and Bâle, and feared to find themselves face to face with these States-General of the Church. Overcome at last by the urgent demands of the princes and people, they had chosen an Italian town for the place of meeting; they had filled the council with their creatures; and had suspended or reopened the sessions, now at one point, now at another, according to the calculations of their policy. Protestants could not recognise this vain semblance of an universal council, and they kept away. The enlightened (Roman) Catholics of France were themselves offended, and it was determined to have a national council.
Most of the French cardinals and bishops were opposed to this. “To what purpose is it, to dispute with such obstinate people,” said the old Cardinal de Tournon; “if they wish to show their means of defence, let them go to the council of Trent; they will have safe conduct, and they may justify themselves if they can.” However, the Cardinal de Lorraine, who was better acquainted with the temper of the court, and counted a good deal upon his eloquence to overthrow the Huguenots, as the writers on their side reproach him, was of a different opinion. He proposed to authorize, not a council, but a simple theological conference, and he obtained the consent of the chiefs of the clergy by the help of this compromise.
The whole affair, however, was full of equivocations and misunderstandings, and that is enough to make us understand the character and issue of the conference of Poissy.
The Reformed pastors, remembering what had happened at Zurich, at Geneva, and other places of Switzerland and Germany, wished to treat with the priests as equals, taking the Bible as the supreme arbiter of the controversy, and giving to the chiefs of the state the right to decide finally between the two parties.