[849] Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, who, in an appendix, has very fully discussed the whole matter (i. 608-625). There is some force in the objection that has been urged against this view, that, were it correct, Beza, himself a resident of Geneva, could not have been ignorant of the derivation, and would not, in the Histoire ecclésiastique, prepared under his supervision, if not by him, have given his sanction to another explanation.
[850] La Planche, 262; Hist. ecclés., i. 169, 170; De Thou, ii. (liv. xxiv.) 766. This is also Étienne Pasquier's view, who is positive that he heard the Protestants called Huguenots by some friends of his from Tours full eight or nine years before the tumult of Amboise; that is, about 1551 or 1552: "Car je vous puis dire que huict ou neuf ans auparavant l'entreprise d'Amboise je les avois ainsi ouy appeller par quelques miens amis Tourengeaux." Recherches de France, 770. This is certainly pretty strong proof.
[851] La Place, 34; Davila, i. 20; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. 96. See also Pasquier, ubi supra.
[852] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 7. A somewhat similar reason had, in Poitou, caused them, for a time, to be called Fribours, the designation casually given to a counterfeit coin of debased metal. Pasquier, 770.
[853] Advertissement au Peuple de France, apud Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), 7. Also in the Complainte au Peuple François, ibid., p. 10. Both of these papers were published immediately after the Tumulte d'Amboise. The eminent Pierre Jurieu—"le Goliath des Protestants"—tells us that, having at one time accepted the derivation from "eidgenossen" as the most plausible, he subsequently returned to that which connects the word Huguenot with Hugues or Hugh Capet. The nickname confessedly arose, so far as France was concerned, first in Touraine, and became general at the time of the tumult of Amboise, nearly thirty years after the reformation of Geneva. "Qui est-ce qui auroit transporté en Touraine ce nom trente ans après sa naissance, de Genève où il n'avoit jamais esté cognu?" Histoire du calvinisme et celle du papisme, etc. Rotterdam, 1683, i. 424, 425.
[854] J. de Serres, i. 67; Pasquier, 771: "Mot qui en peu de temps s'espandit par toute la France."
[855] La Planche, 270. At Amboise, too, so soon as the court had departed, the prisons were broken open, and the prisoners—both those confined for religion and for insurrection—released. The gallows in various parts of the place were torn down, and the ghastly decorations of the castle, in the way of heads and mutilated members, disappeared. Languet, letter of May 15th, Epist. secr., ii. 51.
[856] M. Archinard, conservator of the archives of the Venerable Company of Pastors of Geneva, has compiled from the records a list of 121 pastors sent by the Church of Geneva to the Reformed Churches of France within eleven years—1555 to 1566. Many others have, doubtless, escaped notice. Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 72-76. Cf. also Ib., ix. 294 seq., for an incomplete list of Protestant pastors in France, probably in 1567, from an old MS. in the Genevan library.
[857] The high moral and intellectual qualifications of the Protestant ministers were eulogized by the Bishop of Valence, Montluc, in his speech before the king at Fontainebleau, to which I shall soon have occasion to refer again. "The doctrine, sire," he said, "which interests your subjects, was sown for thirty years; not in one, or two, or three days. It was introduced by three or four hundred ministers, diligent and practised in letters; men of great modesty, gravity, and appearance of sanctity; professing to detest every vice, and, particularly, avarice; fearless of losing their lives in confirmation of their preaching; who always had Jesus Christ upon their lips—a name so sweet that it gives an entrance into ears the most carefully closed, and easily glides into the heart of the most hardened." "Harangue de l'Evesque de Vallence," apud Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), i. 290; Mém. de Condé, i. 558; La Place, 55. The eloquent Bishop of Valence must be regarded as a better authority than those persons who, according to Castelnau, accused the Calvinist ministers of Geneva of "having more zeal and ignorance than religion." Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 3.
[858] Calvin, in a letter sent by François de Saint Paul, a minister whom he induced to accept the urgent call of the church of Montélimart, dissuaded that church from this step which was already contemplated. Better is it, said he, to increase the flock, and to gather in the scattered sheep, meanwhile keeping quiet yourselves. "At least, while you hold your assemblies peaceably from house to house, the rage of the wicked will not so soon be enkindled against you, and you will render to God what He requires, namely, the glorifying of His name in a pure manner, and the keeping of yourselves unpolluted by all superstitious observances, until it please Him to open a wider door." Lettres françaises (Bonnet), ii. 335, 336. The author of the Histoire ecclés. des églises réf., i. 138, expresses a belief that had such wise counsels been followed, incomparably the greater part of the district would have embraced the Reformation.