[591] Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 258-260.
[592] Garnier, Hist. de France, xxvii. 49, etc., whose account of the attempted introduction of the Spanish Inquisition into France is the most correct and comprehensive.
[593] Ibid., ubi supra; De Thou, ii. 375. The edict establishing the Spanish inquisition is not contained in any collection of laws, as it was never formally registered. Dulaure (Hist. de Paris, iv. 133, 134) gives, apparently from the Reg. criminels du parl., registre coté 101, au 20 mai 1555, an extract from it: "Que les inquisiteurs de la foi et juges ecclésiastiques peuvent librement procéder à la punition des hérétiques, tant clercs que laïcs, jusqu'à sentence dèfinitive inclusivement; que les accusés qui, avant cette sentence, appelleront comme d'abus resteront toujours prisonniers, et leur appel sera porté au parlement. Mais, nonobstant cet appel, si l'accusé est déclaré hérétique par les inquisiteurs, et pour ne pas retarder son châtiment, il sera livré au bras séculier." (Soldan, from Lamothe-Langon, iii. 458, reads exclusivement, which must be wrong, if, indeed, the whole be not a mere paraphrase, which I suspect.)
[594] By the advice of the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Parliament of Paris had been divided into two sections, holding their sessions each for six months, and each vested with the powers of the entire body. This change went into effect July 2, 1554, and lasted three years. It was made ostensibly to relieve the judges and expedite business, but really in the interest of despotism, to diminish the authority of the undivided court sitting throughout the year. De Thou, ii. 246, 247.
[595] The post of Inquisitor-General of the Faith in France, having his seat at Toulouse, had, as we have already seen, long existed. It was filled in 1536 by friar Vidal de Bécanis (the letters patent appointing whom are given in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., i. (1853), 358). He was succeeded by Louis de Rochetti, who left the Roman Catholic Church, and was burned alive at Toulouse, Sept. 10, 1538. Afterward Bécanis was reinstated (Ibid., ubi supra). A circular letter of this inquisitor-general, accompanying a list of heretical and prohibited works, is given, Ibid., i. 362, 363, 437, etc.
[596] Garnier, Hist. de France, xxvii. 49-54.
[597] The date, Oct. 16th, usually given (by De Thou, Garnier, etc.) for this harangue is incorrect. The publication of the valuable "Mémoires-journaux du Duc de Guise," which Messrs. Michaud and Poujoulat (1851) have brought out of their obscurity, affords us the advantage of reading the account of the deputation and speech of Séguier in the words of his own report, from the Registers of Parliament (pp. 246-249). From this we learn that Séguier and Du Drac left Paris on Saturday, Oct. 19th, reached Villera-Cotterets on Monday the 21st, and had an audience on Tuesday the 22d.
[598] "Qu'il falloit croire l'Escriture et rendre tesmoignage de sa créance par bonnes œuvres, et qui ne la veut croire et accuse les autres estre luthériens, est plus hérétique que les mesmes luthériens." Mémoires de Guise, 248.
[599] Mémoires de Guise, 246-249; Gamier, xxvii. 55-70; De Thou, liv. xvi., ii. 375-377.
[600] Mém. de Guise, 249, 250.