Assembly of notables at Fontainebleau, August 21, 1560.
On the twenty-first of August this celebrated assembly was convened by royal letters in the stately palace at Fontainebleau.[885] Antoine of Navarre and the Prince of Condé declined, on specious pretexts, the king's invitation. Constable Montmorency accepted it, but came with a formidable escort of eight hundred attendants. His three nephews, the Châtillons, followed his example, and shared his protection. At the appointed hour a brilliant company was gathered in the spacious apartments of the queen mother. On either side of the king's throne sat Mary of Scots, and Catharine de' Medici, and the young princes—Charles Maximilian, Duke of Orleans, Edward Alexander, and Hercules.[886] Four cardinals, in their purple—Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, and Châtillon—sat below. Next to these were placed the Duke of Guise, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom; the Duke of Montmorency, as constable; L'Hospital, as chancellor; Marshals St. André and Brissac; Admiral Coligny; Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne; Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans; Montluc, Bishop of Valence; and the other members of the privy council. In front of these, the members of the Order of St. Michael, and the rest of the notables, occupied lower benches.[887]
Chancellor L'Hospital's speech.
The session opened with brief speeches delivered by Francis and his mother, setting forth the object of this extraordinary convocation, but referring their auditors to the chancellor and to the king's uncles for further explanations. Chancellor L'Hospital was less concise. He entertained the assembly with a lengthy comparison of the political malady to a bodily disease,[888] pronouncing the cure to be easy, if only the cause could be detected. He closed by assigning a somewhat singular reason for summoning but two of the three orders of the state. The presence of the people, he said, was in no wise necessary, inasmuch as the king's sole object was to relieve the third estate. Because, forsooth, the poor people—bowed down to the earth with taxes and burdens, which the noblesse would not touch with one of their fingers—was the party chiefly interested in the results of the present deliberations, it was quite unessential that its complaints or requests should be heard! The Duke of Guise and his brother, the cardinal, next laid before the assembly an account of their administration of the army and finances; and the first day's session ended with the pleasant announcement that the royal revenues annually fell short of the regular expenses by the sum—very considerable for those days—of two and one-half millions of livres.
Coligny speaks and presents two petitions.
When next the notables met, two days later, the king formally proposed a free discussion of the subject in hand. The youngest member of the privy council was about to speak, when Gaspard de Coligny arose, and, advancing to the throne, twice bowed humbly to the king. By the royal orders, he said, he had lately visited Normandy and investigated the origin of the recent commotions. He had satisfied himself that they were owing to no ill-will felt toward the crown; but only to the extreme and illegal violence with which the inhabitants had been treated for religion's sake. He had, therefore, believed it to be his duty to listen to the requests of the persecuted, who offered to prove that their doctrines were conformable to the Holy Scriptures and to the traditions of the primitive church, and to take charge of the two petitions which they had drawn up and addressed to his Majesty and the queen mother. They were without signatures; for these could not be affixed without the royal permission previously granted the reformed to assemble together. But, with that permission, he could obtain the names of fifty thousand persons in Normandy alone. In answer to Coligny's prayer that the king would take his action in good part, Francis assured him that his past fidelity was a sufficient pledge of his present zeal; and commanded L'Aubespine, secretary of state, to read the papers which the admiral had just placed in his hands.
The petitions are read.
They ask for liberty of worship.
The petitions,[889] addressed, one to the king, the other to the queen mother, purported to come from "the faithful Christians scattered in various parts of the kingdom." They set forth the severity of the persecutions the Huguenots had undergone, and were yet undergoing, for attempting to live according to the purity of God's word, and their supreme desire to have their doctrine subjected to examination, that it might be seen to be neither seditious nor heretical. The suppliants begged for an intermission of the cruel measures which had stained all France with blood. They professed an unswerving allegiance, as in duty bound, to the king whom God had called to the throne. And of that king they prayed that the occasion of so many calumnies, invented against them by reason of the secret and nocturnal meetings to which they had been driven by the prohibition of open assemblies, might be removed; and that, with the permission to meet publicly for the celebration of divine rites, houses for worship might also be granted to them.[890]
It was a perilous step for the admiral to take. By his advocacy of toleration he incurred liability to the extreme penalties that had been inflicted upon others for utterances much less courageous. But the very boldness of the movement secured his safety where more timid counsels might have brought him ruin. Besides, it was not safe to attack so gallant a warrior, and the nephew of the powerful constable. Yet the audible murmurs of the opposite party announced their ill-will.