At his admission into parliament each judge had taken an oath to maintain inviolable secrecy in reference to the deliberations of the court. This was rightly supposed to relate in particular to the expressions of opinion before any formal decision. Nevertheless, the king was at once acquainted by the First President, Le Maistre, and by Minard, one of the presidents à mortier, with the entire proceedings of the Mercuriale. He was told that the "Lutheranism" of certain judges was now manifest. They had spoken in abominable terms of the mass, of the ecclesiastical ordinances, and of prevailing abuses. It would be the ruin of the church if such daring were suffered to pass by unrebuked.[698]
The representation of these enormities inflamed Henry's anger. His courtiers took good care not to suffer it to cool. What if, emboldened by impunity, the Protestants, of whose rapid growth in all parts of France such startling reports were brought to him, should attempt to carry out the plan that was talked of among them, and seize the opportunity of the wedding festivities solemnly to present to his Majesty, by the hands of one of the nobles, the confession of faith of their churches? What punishment of the audacious agent employed would remove from the minds of the orthodox foreign princes present at court the sinister impression that heresy had struck deep root in the realm of the Very Christian King?[699]
Henry goes in person to listen to the deliberations, June 10, 1559.
If a candid gentleman of the bed-chamber, like Vieilleville, privately urged Henry to reject the advice of prelates in secular matters, and respectfully decline the assumption of the post of theologian or inquisitor-general of the faith, his remonstrances were overborne by the suggestions of Diana and the Guises, who hoped to reap a rich harvest from new confiscations.[700] The king was entreated to go in person to listen to the discussions in parliament. Early on the morning of the tenth of June, his chamber was visited by a host of ecclesiastics—among them four cardinals, two archbishops, two bishops, and several doctors of the Sorbonne, with De Mouchy, the inquisitor, at their head. They urged him to follow out their suggestion, and were so successful in overcoming his reluctance that, as a contemporary wrote, he thought himself consigned to perdition if he failed to go.[701]
Parliament meets in the Augustinian monastery.
The magnificent hall of the royal palace on the island of the "Cité," in which parliament was accustomed to meet, was in course of preparation for the festivities that were to accompany the marriages of Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, with Philip the Second of Spain, and of his only sister, Margaret, with the Duke of Savoy. Parliament was consequently sitting in the monastery of the Augustinian friars on the southern bank of the Seine.[702] Thither Henry proceeded in state with a retinue of noblemen, and accompanied by the archers of his body-guard. Taking his seat upon the elevated throne prepared for him, with the constable, the Guises, and the princes that had attended him, on his right and left, Henry made to the judges a short address indicative of his purpose to take advantage of the peace in order to labor for the re-establishment of the faith, and of his desire to obtain the advice of his supreme court.[703] When the king had concluded, Bertrand, Cardinal Archbishop of Sens and Keeper of the Seals, announced the command of his Majesty that the consideration of the religious questions undertaken in the Mercuriale should be resumed.
Fearlessness of the counsellors.
Anne du Bourg.