L'Ange for the tiers état.
It now devolved upon the deputies to prepare a statement of their grievances, and for this purpose the "noblesse" retired to the Dominican, the clergy to the Franciscan, and the "tiers" to the Carmelite convents.[988] The Cardinal of Lorraine had had the effrontery to solicit, through his creatures, the honor of representing the three orders collectively; but the proposition had been rejected with undissembled derision. Loud voices were heard from among the deputies of the people, crying, "We do not choose to select him to speak for us of whom we intend to offer our complaints!"[989] Three orators were deputed to speak for the three orders.[990] The Sieur de Rochefort, in behalf of the nobles, declared their approval of the government of Catharine, but insisted at some length upon the necessity of conciliating their good will by a studious regard for their privileges. He likened the king to the sun and the "noblesse" to the moon. Any conflict between the two would produce an eclipse that would darken the entire earth. He denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the non-residence of the priests;[991] and he closed by presenting a petition, which was read aloud by one of the secretaries of state, demanding the grant of churches for the use of those nobles who preferred the purer worship.[992] The Bordalese lawyer, Jean L'Ange, in the name of the people, dwelt chiefly on the three capital vices of the clergy—ignorance, avarice, and luxury,[993] and portrayed very effectively the general disorders, the intolerable tyranny of the Guises, the exhausted state of the public treasury, and the means of restoring the Church to purity of faith and regularity of discipline.
Arrogant speech of Quintin for the clergy.
Presumption in favor of the Catholic Church.
But it was the clerical delegate, Jean Quintin, that attracted most attention. Standing between the other two orators, he delivered a speech of great length and insufferable arrogance. He admitted that the clergy might need reformation; but the Church with its hierarchy must not be touched—that was the body of Christ. Charles must defend the Church against heresy—against that Gospel falsely and maliciously so called, which consisted in profaning churches, in breaking the sacred images, in the marriage of priests and nuns. He must not suffer the Reformation to affect the articles of faith, the sacraments, traditions, ordinances, or ceremonial. Should any one venture to resuscitate heresies long dead and buried, he begged the king to declare him a champion of heresy and to proceed against him. He insisted on the presumption in favor of the Catholic Church, and demanded the unconditional submission of its opponents. "They must believe us, without waiting for a council; not we them." He was warm in his praise of the Emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian III., who confiscated the goods of heretics, banished them, and deprived them of the right of conveying or receiving property by will. He raised his voice particularly in behalf of Burgundy and of his own diocese of Autun, whose inhabitants "were well-nigh drowned by the much too frequent inundations of pestilent books from the infected lagoons of Geneva."[994]
Temporal interests.
Sad straits of the clergy.
A word for the down-trodden people.
In the midst of this tirade against the inroads of Calvinism, the prudent doctor of canon law did not, however, altogether lose sight of the temporal concerns of the priesthood. He proffered an urgent request for the restoration of canonical elections, laying the growth of heresy altogether to the account of the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction by the Concordat in 1517. The sanction being re-established, "the detestable and damnable sects, the execrable and accursed heresies of to-day" would incontinently flee from the church. If he painted the portrait of the prelate elected by the suffrages of his diocese in somewhat too nattering colors, he certainly gave a vivid picture of the sad straits to which the clergy were reduced by the imposition of the repeated tithes on their revenues, now become customary. Masses were unsaid, churches had been stripped of their ornaments. Missals and chalices even had, in some places, been sold at auction to meet the exorbitant demands of royal officers. It was to be feared that, if Christian kings continued to lay sacerdotal possessions under contribution, the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this generation, and would condemn it. Lest, however, this commination should not prove terrible enough, the examples of Belshazzar and others were judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of Clerophilus, or Maximus, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the interest of the "noblesse," and even of the poor, down-trodden people—begging the king to lighten the burdens which that so good, so obedient people had long borne patiently, and not to suffer this third foot of the throne to be crushed or broken.[995] When the crown had returned to this course of just action, the Church would pray very devoutly in its behalf, the nobility fight valiantly, the people obey humbly. It would be paradise begun on earth.[996]
The clergy alone makes no progress.