History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

A formal command was now addressed to the Parliament of Paris, and the bearer, La Trémouille, informed that body, as it listened to the message, that Francis had repeated to him more than ten times within a quarter of an hour, "that he would not for half his kingdom fail of his word to the Pope, and that if parliament rebelled, he would find means to make it repent of its obstinacy." Under these circumstances, further resistance from a body so completely dependent on the sovereign was not to be thought of. Yet, even when compelled to yield, parliament, at the suggestion of the gens du roi, coupled the registry of the concordat with a declaration that it was made at the express command of the king several times reiterated, that parliament disapproved of the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction; and that, in the adjudication of causes, it would continue to follow the ordinance of Charles the Seventh, while appealing to the Pope under better advisement, and to a future council of the church. Thus the concordat, projected at Bologna in 1515, and signed at Rome on the sixteenth of August, 1516, was registered by the Parliament of Paris de expressissimo mandato regis, on the twenty-second of March, 1518.[65]

The university remonstrates.

Even now Francis had not quite silenced all opposition. The rector of the University of Paris, not content with entering a formal remonstrance,[66] took a bolder step. Making use of a prerogative long since conceded to the university, of exercising a censure over the press, he posted a notice to all printers and publishers forbidding the reproduction of the concordat on pain of loss of their privileges. The dean and canons of the cathedral church of Paris also handed in a protest. The preachers of several churches rivalled the rector in audacity, by publicly inveighing against the dangers of the ecclesiastical innovations introduced by the king. It is not surprising that a prince impatient even of wholesome rebuke was enraged at this monkish tirade. Parliament was ordered to bring the culprits to justice; but, strange to say, none could be discovered—a circumstance certainly attributable rather to the supineness of the judges than to any lack of witnesses. To the university Francis wrote in a haughty vein, threatening the severe punishment of any of its doctors that dared preach against the government; while, by an edict from Amboise, he forbade the rector and his associates from assembling for the discussion of political questions.

These were the closing scenes of the exciting drama. The king had triumphed, but not without encountering a spirited opposition from parliament, university, and clergy. If these had succumbed, it had only been before superior strength, and each of the bodies reserved to itself the right of treating the concordat as a nullity and the Pragmatic Sanction as still the ecclesiastical constitution of the land.

The resistance not altogether fruitless.

Nor was this altogether an empty claim. Some of the provisions of the concordat were never enforced, and that was a solid advantage gained through the opposition. The parliaments persisted in rendering judgment, in such cases as came before them, in conformity with the Pragmatic Sanction. The Bishop of Albi, chosen by the canons, was confirmed in his see, notwithstanding the pretensions of a nominee of the crown. And yet the concordat was not merely maintained by the Pope and the king, but, a few years later, its provisions were extended to monastic foundations previously possessed of an undisputed title to elect. This was done to gratify Francis on the marriage of his second son Henry to Catharine de' Medici, niece of Clement, the reigning pontiff. The somewhat suspicious story is told, that, to aid in carrying out this new act of injustice, Cardinal Duprat, having ordered all ecclesiastical bodies to send him the original documents attesting their right of election, at once consigned the parchments to the fire, in order to destroy all memory of these troublesome claims. If the tale be apocryphal, it at least indicates sufficiently well the estimation in which the prelate's character was held by his contemporaries.

Advantages gained by the crown.

The clergy reluctantly admitted the concordat into their books after the lapse of two centuries, but solely, as they declared, for convenience of reference. The restoration of the Pragmatic Sanction continued to be demanded by one or all the orders of the States General, during the reigns of Francis the Second, Charles the Ninth, and their successors, not least on the ground that the day that witnessed its repeal also beheld the introduction of the "heresy" that had since attained such formidable proportions.[67] But, if opposed and denounced, the concordat was carried into execution, so far as most of its provisions were concerned, until the French revolution. The advantages gained by the crown were too palpable to be voluntarily relinquished. Almost the entire patronage of the church was thrown into the hands of the king, who, in the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, held at his disposal eighteen archbishoprics, 112 bishoprics, 1,666 abbeys for men, and 317 abbeys and priories for women.[68] It must not be forgotten that the annats, or first-fruits of benefices, now regularly falling into the pontifical treasury, made the concordat scarcely less valuable to the Papal See.[69]

Era of the Renaissance.

The most enviable distinction of the reign of Francis the First consisted in the fact that it was the era of that extraordinary development of the fine arts and of literature known as the Renaissance. Illustrious during the Middle Ages, and foremost in the pursuit of scholastic learning, France had unfortunately lost that proud eminence when the revival of letters enkindled elsewhere a new passion for discovery. Her adventurous sons had taken the lead in the crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but three hundred years later no expeditions were fitted out in her ports to explore and appropriate the virgin territories beyond the western sea. The art of printing and the impulse given to astronomical research originated abroad. The famous mediæval seat of learning seemed to have been suddenly visited with a premature decay. Even the exiled scholars of the East, fleeing before Turkish barbarism, disdained to settle in a country where the treasures of ancient science which they had brought with them from Mount Athos and Constantinople were so inadequately appreciated.[70]