The Huguenots received orders to quit Paris in twenty-four hours under pain of death. The infamous accusations of former years were again brought against them. Coarse prints were constantly circulated, representing the heretics tearing out the bowels of the monks, and casting their victims before swine. The fanaticism of the populace was raised by these provocations to the blindest pitch of frenzy, and it was enough to pass for a Huguenot in the streets to be instantly slaughtered. Theodore de Bèze cites many instances of these facts.
The triumvirs and the priests knew very well what they would gain by seizing upon the opinion of this powerful city. “Paris,” says the historian Davila, “alone gave more credit, and more weight, than one-half of the kingdom could have given.”[43]
Coligny felt this. He advised the prince of Condé to march direct upon Paris, urging that the triumvirs had as yet no army, and that a multitude without discipline might be easily overcome. Condé refused. Brother of the king of Navarre, and looking forward to be one day lieutenant-general of the kingdom, he was obliged to act with circumspection even towards his most violent adversaries. A prince of the blood is not the man to lead a party in those critical moments, when all must be hazarded to conquer all. Would the English Puritans have triumphed, if they had chosen a member of the royal family for their chief instead of Cromwell?
Catherine de Medicis proposed to open conferences between the two parties. It was the only plan, by which she could still make any figure. In the struggles of warriors she could do nothing; in negotiations she relied upon her genius, and flattered herself that she could entangle the heads of the (Roman) Catholics, as well as of the Reformed, in her intrigues.
A first conference was held on the 2nd of June, at Thoury, in Beauce. It was agreed that each party should meet, with an equal escort of gentlemen, who should keep aloof, at a distance of eight hundred paces from each other. But whilst the chiefs debated, the gentlemen drew near together; in fact, they yearned towards each other. On a sudden, old friendships rekindled; party quarrels were forgotten; there were no longer Papists and Huguenots, but mingling embraces and tears; they only remembered that they had spent their childhood together, had drunk out of the same cup, and slept under the same roof. Sacred instinct of the heart! It inspired better emotions than the science of theologians, or the politics of statesmen!
The queen-mother had conceived, with the bishop Montluc, her private counsellor, a strange expedient. It was to engage the chiefs of the two parties to impose on themselves a voluntary exile. The triumvirs were to withdraw from the court; the prince of Condé, the admiral, and the principal Calvinists, were to leave the kingdom until the majority of Charles IX., that the religious differences might be peaceably arranged. Such an idea was but a court stratagem, which could settle nothing.
Much time had been lost. The Calvinist gentlemen, who had to maintain themselves at their own expense, were beginning to return home, and the army of the triumvirs was increasing. This was perceived by the increase of persecution. The Parliament of Paris passed a decree, at the end of June, commanding heretics to be set upon, and to be killed, wherever they should be met, like madmen, who were enemies of God and man. Every Sunday the curates were to read this dreadful decree from the pulpit. The peasants, the workmen, armed themselves with whatever weapon came to hand, and began to scour the country, as if to rid it of wild beasts. The monks, in their hideous language, called this “letting slip the great greyhound.”
A new decree of the Parliament, passed on the 18th of August, declared all the gentlemen of the new religion, with the exception of the prince of Condé, traitors to God and the king, and summoned them to appear in three days, in default of which they were to be punished by the confiscation of their bodies and their goods.
It was then that the Calvinists determined to press D’Andelot to bring some lansquenets from Germany, and to conclude a treaty with Elizabeth, queen of England, by which she undertook to furnish a force of six thousand men. Three thousand were to land at Havre-de-Grâce, and three thousand were to serve for the defence of Dieppe and Rouen, which were in the hands of Condé. This treaty was signed on the 20th of September, 1562, and Queen Elizabeth published a manifesto, in which she affirmed before heaven and before the world, that she had no other object, but to defend the loyal subjects of King Charles IX., her brother, against the tyranny of their oppressors.