[671] Among the many important services which the French Protestant Historical Society has rendered, the rescue from oblivion of the interesting correspondence relating to D'Andelot's imprisonment merits to be reckoned by no means the least (Bulletin, iii. 238-255). Even the graphic narrative of the Histoire ecclésiastique fails to give the vivid impression conveyed by a perusal of these eight documents emanating from the pens of D'Andelot, Macar (one of the pastors at Paris), and Calvin. The dates of these letters, in connection with a statement in the Hist. ecclés., fix the imprisonment of D'Andelot as lasting from May to July, 1558. A month later Calvin wrote to Garnier: "D'Andelot, the nephew of the constable, has basely deceived our expectations. After having given proofs of invincible constancy, in a moment of weakness he consented to go to mass, if the king absolutely insisted on his doing so. He declared publicly, indeed, that he thus acted against his inclinations; he has nevertheless exposed the gospel to great disgrace. He now implores our forgiveness for this offence.... This, at least, is praiseworthy in him, that he avoids the court, and openly declares that he had never abandoned his principles." Letter of Aug. 29th, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460; see also Ath. Coquerel, Précis de l'histoire de l'égl. réf. de Paris, Pièces historiques, pp. xxii.-lxxvi.; twenty-one letters of Macar belonging to 1558. If the reformers condemned D'Andelot's concession, Paul the Fourth, on the other hand, regarded his escape from the estrapade as proof positive that not only Henry, but even the Cardinal of Lorraine, was lukewarm in the defence of the faith! Read the following misspelt sentences from a letter of Card. La Bourdaisière, the French envoy to Rome, to the constable (Feb. 25, 1559), now among the MSS. of the National Library of Paris. The Pope had sent expressly for the ambassador: "Il me declara que cestoit pour me dire quil sebayssoit grandement comme sa magesté ne faysoit autre compte de punyr les hereticques de son Royaume et que limpunite de monsieur dandelot donnoit une tres mauvayse reputation a sadicte mageste devant laquelle ledict Sr. dandelot avoit confessé destre sacramentayre et qui leust (qu 'il l'eût) mené tout droit au feu comme il meritoit ... que monsieur le cardinal de Lorrayne, lequel sa Saincteté a fait son Inquisiteur, ne se sauroit excuser quil nayt grandement failly ayant layssé perdre une si belle occasion dun exemple si salutayre et qui luy pouvoit porter tant dhonneur et de reputation, mais quil monstre bien que luy mesme favorise les hereticques, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser de la puyssance que sadicte Saincteté luy a donnée." Of course, Paul could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the Pontiff evidently regarded as a thing to be executed rather than spoken about, and he therefore begged the French ambassador to write the letter to the king in his own cipher, and advise him "to let no one in the world see his letter." Whereupon Card. La Bourdaisière rather irreverently observes: "Je croy que le bonhomme pense que le roy dechiffre luy mesme ses lettres!" a supposition singularly absurd in the case of Henry, who hated business of every kind. La Bourdaisière conceived it, on the other hand, to be for his own interest to take the first opportunity to give private information of the entire conversation to the constable, D'Andelot's uncle, and to advise him that it would go hard with his nephew, should he fall into Paul's hands ("quil feroit un mauvais parti sil le tenoit"). Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i. (appendix), 607, 608; Bulletin de l'histoire du prot. français, xxvii. (1878), 103, 104.
[672] Letter of Calvin, Aug. 29, 1558, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460.
[673] De Thou (liv. 20), ii. 568, etc., 576, etc.
[674] Prescott, Philip II., i. 268-270, has described the straits in which Philip found himself in consequence of the deplorable state of his finances. Henry was compelled to resort to desperate schemes to procure the necessary funds. As early as February, 1554—a year before the truce of Vaucelles—he published an edict commanding all the inhabitants of Paris to send in an account of the silver plate they possessed. Finding that it amounted to 350,000 livres, he ordered his officers to take and convert it into money, which he retained, giving the owners twelve per cent. as interest on the compulsory loan. They were informed, and were doubtless gratified to learn, that the measure was not only one of urgency, but also precautionary—lest the necessity should arise for the seizure of the plate, without compensation, it may be presumed. Reg. des ordon., apud Félibien, H. de Paris, preuves, v. 287-290.
[675] Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 270.
[676] De Thou, ii. 584, 585, 660, etc.
[677] More than one hundred thousand lives and forty millions crowns of gold, if we may believe the Mémoires de Vieilleville, ii. 408, 409. "Quod multo sanguine, pecunia incredibili, spatio multorum annorum Galli acquisierant, uno die magna cum ignominia tradiderunt," says the papal nuncio, Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. com., 1437. See, however, Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Am. tr., p. 127.
[678] Mém. de Vieilleville, ubi supra. The text of the treaty is given in Recueil gén. des anc. lois françaises, xiii. 515, etc., and in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. pt. 1, pp. 34, etc.; the treaty between France and England, with scrupulous exactness, as usual, in Dr. P. Forbes, State Papers, i. 68, etc.
[679] The prevalent sentiment in France is strongly expressed by Brantôme, by the memoirs of Vieilleville, of Du Villars, of Tavannes, etc. "La paix honteuse fut dommageable," says Tavannes; "les associez y furent trahis, les capitaines abandonnez à leurs ennemis, le sang, la vie de tant de Français negligée, cent cinquante forteresses rendues, pour tirer de prison un vieillard connestable, et se descharger de deux filles de France." Mém. de Gaspard de Saulx, seign. de Tavannes, ii. 242. Du Villars represents the Duke of Guise as remonstrating with Henry for giving up in a moment more than he could have lost in thirty years, and as offering to guard the least considerable city among the many he surrendered against all the Spanish troops: "Mettez-moy dedans la pire ville de celles que vous voulez rendre, je la conserveray plus glorieusement sur la bresche, etc." (Ed. Petitot, ii. 267, liv. 10). But the duke's own brother was one of the commissioners; and Soldan affirms the existence of a letter from Guise to Nevers (of March 27, 1559) in the National Library, fully establishing that the duke and the cardinal understood and were pleased with the substance of the treaty (Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 266, note).
[680] "Henricus rex se propterea quacumque ratione pacem inire voluisse dicebat, 'quod intelligeret, regnum Franciæ ad heresim declinare, magnumque in numerum venisse, ita ut, si diutius diferret, neque ipsius conscientiæ, neque regni tranquillitati prospiceret: ... se propterea ad quasvis pacis conditiones descendisse, ut regnum hæreticis ac malis hominibus purgaret.' Hæc ab eo satis frigide et cum pudore dicebantur." Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. comment., 1437.