[1059] "Le temps est une créature de Dieu à luy subjecte, de manière que dix mille ans ne sont une minute en la puissance de nostre Dieu." The long speech of M. Bretagne, certainly one of the noblest pleas for freedom of religious worship to be found within the limits of the sixteenth century, is inserted in full in the Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), 620-645, in La Place, liv. vi. 141-150, and in the Hist. ecclés. des églises réformées, i. 298-305. Summary in De Thou, iii. 57, 58.
[1060] Projects somewhat similar had been made, early in the year, in some of the provincial estates. In those of Languedoc, held at Montpellier in March, 1561, Terlon, a "capitoul" of Toulouse, speaking for the "tiers état," advocated the sale of all the secular possessions of the clergy, reserving only a residence for the incumbent, and assigning him a pension equal to his present income, to be paid by the cities of the kingdom. Chabot, a lawyer of Nismes, went further, and, when the clamor of the people had secured the hearing at first denied him, did not hesitate to say that the burdens of the province should be placed upon the shoulders of the priests and monks—whom he stigmatized as ignorant and corrupt—because of the evils they had inflicted upon the people. He even wanted a petition to this effect, signed by thirty syndicates favorable to the reformed religion, to be inserted in the cahier of Languedoc. Mémoires d'Achille Gamon—advocate and consul of Annonay—apud Collection de Mémoires, Michaud et Poujoulat, 611. Some such wholesale confiscation seems even to have entered into the plans of the cabinet. In May, 1561, royal letters were sent to the Bishop of Paris, to the provost, and indeed, throughout France, demanding a return of the true value of all episcopal and other revenues (Mémoires de Condé, i. 27). The object was plain enough. The clergy remonstrated energetically, as may be imagined (Ib., i. 29-39). The Paris clergy had especial recourse to the Cardinal of Lorraine, in a letter of June 3d. Honest Abbé Bruslart, touched to the quick by the suggestion, notes in his quaint journal: "Voilà les incommoditez de la nouvelle religion," etc. (Ib., i. 28).
[1061] "La diversité d'opinion soubstenues par vos subjects ne provient que d'ung grand zelle et affection qu'ils ont au salut de leurs ames."
[1062] La Place, 152; De Thou, iii. 58, 59; Hist. ecclés., i. 306; Garnier, H. de France, xxix. 308, etc., who gives a very full abstract; but Ranke, v. 93-97, publishes from the MS. the hitherto inedited cahier.
[1063] Catharine's own account is given in an important letter to the Bishop of Rennes, written September 14, 1561—five days after the colloquy commenced: "Ayant esté requise, y a déja quelques mois, de la pluspart de la noblesse et des gens du tiers estat de ce Royaume, de faire ouïr lea ministres, qui sont départis en plusieurs villes de cedit Royaume, sur leur Confession de Foy; je fus conseillée par mon frere le Roy de Navarre, les autres Princes du sang, et les Gens du Conseil du Roy Monsieur mon fils, de ce faire; ayant avisé après avoir longuement et meurement délibéré là-dessus, que aux grands troubles ... il n'y avoit meilleur moyen ny plus fructueux pour faire abandonner les dits Ministres et retirer ceux qui leur adherent, que en faissant confondre leur doctrine et montrant et découvrant ce qu'il y a d'erreur et d'hérésie." Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 732, 733.
[1064] Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. 175; Martin, Hist. de France, x. 84. The restriction of the invitation to Frenchmen is referred to by Catharine in a letter of September 14 (Le Laboureur, Add., i. 733): "Ayant ... accordé à ceux desdits Ministres qui seroient nez en France, de comparoittre à Poissy."
[1065] The letters of La Rivière, Condé, Châtillon, and Antoine of Navarre, are printed in Baum, App., 34, 35. The question naturally arises, Why did not Calvin himself, who had been specially invited by the Protestant princes, receive permission from the magistrates of Geneva to go to Poissy? The truth is, that the Protestants of Paris "did not see the possibility of his being present without grave peril, in view of the rage conceived against him by the enemies of the Gospel, and the disturbances his name alone would excite in the country were he known to be in it." "In fact," they say in a letter but recently brought to light, "the Admiral by no means favors your undertaking the journey, and we have learned with certainty that the queen would not relish seeing you there, frankly saying that she cannot pledge herself for your safety in these parts, as she can for that of the rest. Meanwhile, the enemies of the Gospel, on the other hand, say that they would be glad to hear all the rest [of the reformers], but that, as for you, they could not bring themselves to listen to you or look at you. You see, sir, in what esteem you are held by these venerable prelates. I suspect that you will not be very much grieved by it, nor consider yourself dishonored by being thus regarded by such gentry!" La Rivière, in the name of all the ministers of Paris, to Calvin, July 31, 1561, Bulletin, xvi. (1867), 602-604.
[1066] Letter of the Syndics and Council of Geneva to the Lords of Zurich, July 21, 1561, and Charles IX.'s safe-conduct for Peter Martyr, July 30, Baum, ii., App., 36, 37.
[1067] Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 724; cf. letter of Card. de la Bourdaisière to the Bishop of Rennes, Rome, August 23, 1561, ibid., and of Chantonnay to Tisnacq, September 6, Mém. de Condé, ii. 18.
[1068] The papal nuncio, Prospero di Santa Croce, indeed, represents the Cardinal of Lorraine as the originator of the perilous scheme. When Lorraine and Tournon, whom the Pope had constituted his legates, with the commission to put forth their most strenuous exertions to uphold the Roman Church in France, found advice, exhortation, and persuasion all in vain, Lorraine, in an evil hour, advised the holding of a colloquy: "Lotharingius audaci potius quam prudenti consilio reginæ persuasit, ut Possiaci conventus haberetur episcoporum Galliæ, in quo de religione ac moribus tractaretur: simulque copia fieret Hugonottorum principibus, Ministros illi vocant, si vellent, veniendi, neque iis solum qui erant in Gallia, sed ex finitimis etiam provinciis vocarentur, ut quæ erant de religione controversa proponerentur; futurum sperans, ut ne respondere quidem ad sua postulata auderent. Confidebat enim Lotharingius et doctrinæ et eloquentiæ suæ, et plurimum, ut debebat, ipsius causæ bonitati." Cardinal Tournon was opposed to this course: "Non probabat hoc factum Turnonius, ut qui disputationem omnem cum hæreticis fugiendam noverat." P. Santacrucii de civilibus Galliæ dissensionibus commentarii, Martene et Durand, tom. v. 1462.