At Paris, the markets, the brotherhoods, the workmen, all the smaller classes, in a word, preserved their attachment to the old worship. The better order of citizens were divided; but the majority continued to profess (Roman) Catholicism. The greater number of the gentry, on the contrary, had adopted the Reformed faith, or were inclined to favour it. After the Guises and the court, it was Paris that saved the Romish church in France.
The position of the Reformed had become false and insupportable in every way, under the control of the Edict of July. This edict, which tolerated domestic gatherings and forbade public meetings, could not be carried into effect. The new believers, wherever they were numerous, necessarily overturned the barrier of the law; and on the other hand the (Roman) Catholic populace, excited by the priests, or carried away by their own fanaticism, were committing the greatest atrocities. They bathed in blood at Tours, Sens, and Cahors. Even at Paris, a conflict—known as the mutiny of Saint Médard—broke out. Order, rule, and authority were at an end.
Measures of restraint became necessary. The cardinals and bishops, true to their spirit of persecution, counselled the expulsion of all the preachers from the kingdom, and the extermination of those who should resist; but Catherine de Medicis and L’Hospital answered that such a course would instantly lead to civil war. Only one thing appeared feasible to the chancellor—namely, to give a legal sanction to the public meetings of the Calvinists, under certain conditions.
Hence the Edict of January, 1562, was deliberated and adopted in a solemn assembly of the Notables. L’Hospital then, for the first time, developed the idea of the co-existence of the two communions. He declared that if the king should side entirely with one party, he must at once raise an army to crush the other, and that it would be difficult to make the soldiers fight against their fathers, brothers, sons, or dearest friends. “The question is not,” he said, “about settling religion, but the common weal; for many may be citizens, who are not Christians. Even an excommunicated person does not cease to be a citizen, and we may live at peace with those who are of different opinions, as we see in the same family, where those who are (Roman) Catholics do not the less live in peace with, and love those, who are of the new religion.”
These were the principal provisions of the Edict of January. Those of the Reformed, who had seized churches and ecclesiastical property, were ordered to restore them without delay. It was forbidden to destroy the images, to break the crosses, or to commit any other act, which might give occasion for scandal. It was also forbidden to meet in the interior of towns by night or by day, but authority was given to assemble outside the gates, and to preach, pray, and perform other religious exercises. No one was allowed to go armed to the assemblies, gentlemen excepted, whilst officers of the government were to be admitted whenever they chose to be present.
One clause, which marks the spirit of the epoch, was to the effect, that the ministers were ordered to swear before the civil magistrates, that they would preach in conformity to the Word of God and the Nicene Creed, “in order” said the edict, “not to fill our subjects with new heresies.” The pastors did not complain of this; for they saw a barrier in this obligation against the invasion of doctrines opposed to their own confession of faith.
The Edict of January answered better to the wants of Paris and of the northern or central provinces, than to those of the south. How could whole cities go and worship outside their walls? and to what purpose was it to restore churches, which, for want of (Roman) Catholics, must remain closed? However, Theodore de Bèze and his colleagues, while confessing that more might have been expected, invited the faithful, in the name of God, to observe the edict, and their advice was generally listened to. The religious edifices were given up; the tithes were paid to the priests; and the Reformed now busied themselves only in peacefully organizing their flocks under the protection of the laws.
Not so was it, however, in the opposite camp. The Guises had refused to assist at the assembly of the Notables; and Anne de Montmorency only went to protest against the new decree. The Parliaments of Bordeaux, of Toulouse, Rouen, and Grenoble, registered the edict without difficulty. The Parliament of Dijon, on the contrary, under the influence of the Duke d’Aumale, brother of the Cardinal de Lorraine, met it with a formidable refusal. The Parliament of Paris gave way only after several letters of command had been issued, and added this clause: “In consideration of the urgent necessity, without approving the new religion, and until it be otherwise ordered!” This was in effect, while accepting a law of toleration, to announce the return of persecution.
Notwithstanding this resistance, matters had become more endurable, and the public peace might have been gradually restored, but that the defection of Anthony de Bourbon, lieutenant-general of the kingdom, opened the gate to civil war and the most frightful disasters.