Truly the spirit of the "Holy League" was already born, though the times were not yet ripe for the promulgation of such tenets. The advocate-general was a fluent speaker, and he had been attended many a weary mile by an enthusiastic escort. Parliamentary counsellors, municipal officers, clergy, an immense concourse of the lower stratum of the population—all were at Gaillon, ready to applaud his well-turned sentences. But he had chosen an unlucky moment for his oratorical display. His glowing periods were rudely interrupted by one of the princely auditors. This was Louis of Condé—now doubly important to the court on account of the military undertaking that was on foot—who complained of the speaker's insolent words. So powerful a nobleman could not be despised. And so the voluble Damours, with his oration but half delivered, instead of meeting a gracious monarch's approval and returning home amid the plaudits of the multitude, was hastily taken in charge by the archers of the royal guard and carried off to prison. The rest of the Rouenese disappeared more rapidly than they had come. The avenues to the city were filled with fugitives as from a disastrous battle. Even the grave parliament, which the last winter had been exhibiting its august powers in butchering Huguenots by the score, beginning with the arch-heretic Augustin Marlorat, lost for a moment its self-possession, and took part in the ignominious flight. Shame, however, induced it to pause before it had gone too far, and, putting on the gravest face it could summon, it reappeared ere long at Gaillon with becoming magisterial gravity. Never had there been a more thorough discomfiture.[273] A few days later the Marshal de Bourdillon made his entry into Rouen with a force of Swiss soldiers sufficient to break down all resistance, the "for-issites" were brought in, a new election of municipal officers was held, and comparative quiet was restored in the turbulent city.[274]
Commissioners to enforce the edict.
Alienation of a profligate court.
Profanity a test of Catholicity.
So far as a character so undecided could frame any fixed purpose, Catharine de' Medici was resolved to cement, if possible, a stable peace. The Chancellor, Michel de l'Hospital, still retained his influence over her, and gave to her disjointed plans somewhat of the appearance of a deliberate policy. That policy certainly seemed to mean peace. And to prove this, commissioners were despatched to the more distant provinces, empowered to enforce the execution of the Edict of Amboise.[275] Yet never was the court less in sympathy with the Huguenots than at this moment. If shameless profligacy had not yet reached the height it subsequently attained under the last Valois that sat upon the throne of France, it was undoubtedly taking rapid strides in that direction. For the giddy throng of courtiers, living in an atmosphere that reeked with corruption,[276] the stern morality professed by the lips and exemplified in the lives of Gaspard de Coligny and his noble brothers, as well as by many another of nearly equal rank, could afford but few attractions. Many of these triflers had, it is true, exhibited for a time some leaning toward the reformed faith. But their evanescent affection was merely a fire kindled in the light straw: the fuel was soon consumed, and the brilliant flame which had given rise to such sanguine expectations died out as easily as it sprang up.[277] When once the novelty of the simple worship in the rude barn, or in the retired fields, with the psalms of Marot and Beza sung to quaint and stirring melodies, had worn off; when the black gown of the Protestant minister had become as familiar to the eye as the stole and chasuble of the officiating priest, and the words of the reformed confession of sins as familiar to the ear as the pontifical litanies and prayers, the "assemblée" ceased to attract the curious from the salons of St. Germain and Fontainebleau. Besides, it was one thing to listen to a scathing account of the abuses of churchmen, or a violent denunciation of the sins of priest and monk, and quite another to submit to a faithful recital of the iniquities of the court, and hear the wrath of God denounced against the profane, the lewd, and the extortionate. There were some incidents, occurring just at the close of the war, that completed the alienation which before had been only partial. The Huguenots had attempted by stringent regulations to banish swearing, robbery, and other flagrant crimes from their army. They had punished robbery in many instances with death. They had succeeded so far in doing away with oaths, that their opponents had paid unconscious homage to their freedom from the despicable vice. In those days, when in the civil struggle it was so difficult to distinguish friends from foes, there was one proof of unimpeachable orthodoxy that was rarely disputed. He must be a good Catholic who could curse and swear. The Huguenot soldier would do neither.[278] So nearly, indeed, did the Huguenot affirmation approach to the simplicity of the biblical precept, that one Roman Catholic partisan leader of more than ordinary audacity had assumed for the motto on his standard the blasphemous device: "'Double 's death' has conquered 'Verily.'"[279] But the strictness with which theft and profanity were visited in the Huguenot camp produced but a slight impression, compared with that made by the punishment of death inflicted by a stern judge at Orleans, just before the proclamation of peace, on a man and woman found guilty of adultery. Almost the entire court cried out against the unheard-of severity of the sentence for a crime which had never before been punished at all. The greater part of these advocates of facile morals had even the indiscretion to confess that they would never consent to accept such people as the Huguenots for their masters.[280]
Admiral Coligny accused.
His defence espoused by Condé and the Montmorencies.
Even after the publication of the Edict of Amboise, there was one matter left unsettled that threatened to rekindle the flames of civil war. It will be remembered that the murderer of the Duke of Guise, overcome by terror in view of his fate had charged Gaspard de Coligny with having instigated the perpetration of the foul crime; that, as soon as he heard the accusation, the admiral had not only answered the allegations, article by article, but had written, earnestly begging that Poltrot's execution might be deferred until the return of peace should permit him to be confronted with his accuser. This very reasonable demand, we have seen, had been rejected, and the miserable assassin had been torn into pieces by four horses, upon the Place de Grève, on the very day preceding that which witnessed the signing of the Edict of Amboise. If, however, the queen mother had hoped to diminish the difficulties of her position by taking this course, she had greatly miscalculated. In spite of his protestations, and of a second and more popular defence which he now made,[281] the Guises persisted in believing, or in pretending to believe, Coligny to be the prime cause of the murder of the head of their family. His very frankness was perverted into a proof of his complicity. The admiral's words, as an eminent historian of our own day observes, bear the seal of sincerity, and we need go for the truth nowhere else than to his own avowals.[282] But they did not satisfy his enemies. The danger of an open rupture was imminent. Coligny was coming to court from his castle of Châtillon-sur-Loing, with a strong escort of six hundred gentlemen; but so inevitable did a bloody collision within the walls of Paris seem to the queen, that she begged Condé to dissuade him for the present from carrying out his purpose. Meantime, Condé and the two Montmorencies—the constable and his son, the marshal—espoused Coligny's cause as their own, by publicly declaring (on the fifteenth of May) his entire innocence, and announcing that any blow aimed at the Châtillons, save by legal process, they would regard and avenge as aimed at themselves.[283] Taking excuse from the unsettled relations of the kingdom with England and at home, the privy council at the same time enjoined both parties to abstain from acts of hostility, and adjourned the judicial investigation until after arms had been laid down.[284]
Petition of the Guises.
At length, on the twenty-sixth of September—two months after the reduction of Havre—the Guises renewed their demand with great solemnity. Charles was at Meulan (on the Seine, a few miles below Paris), when a procession of mourners entered his presence. It was the family of Guise, headed by the late duke's widow, his mother, and his children, coming to sue for vengeance on the murderer. All were clad in the dress that betokened the deepest sorrow, and the dramatic effect was complete.[285] They brought a petition couched in decided terms, but making no mention of the name of Coligny, and signed, not only by themselves, but by three of the Bourbons—the Cardinal Charles, the Duke of Montpensier, and his son—and by the Dukes of Longueville and Nemours.[286] Under the circumstances, the king could not avoid granting their request and ordering inquisition to be made by the peers in parliament assembled.[287] But the friends of the absent admiral saw in the proposed investigation only an attempt on the part of his enemies to effect through the forms of law the ruin of the most prominent Huguenot of France. It was certain, they urged, that he could expect no justice at the hands of the presidents and counsellors of the Parisian parliament. Nor did they find it difficult to convince Catharine that to permit a public trial would be to reopen old sores and to risk overturning in a single hour the fabric of peace which for six months she had been laboring hard to strengthen.[288] The king was therefore induced to evoke the consideration of the complaint of the Guises to his own grand council. Here again new difficulties sprang up. The Duchess of Guise was as suspicious of the council as Coligny of the parliament, and challenged the greater number of its members as too partial to act as judges. In fact, it seemed impossible to secure a jury to settle the matter in dispute. After months spent to no purpose in wrangling, Charles determined to remove the question both from the parliament and from the council, and on the fifth of January, 1564, reserved for himself and his mother the duty of adjudication. At the same time, on the ground that the importance of the case demanded the deliberations of a prince of greater age and of more experience than he as yet possessed, and that its discussion at present might prove prejudicial to the tranquillity of the kingdom, he adjourned it for three full years, or until such other time as he might hereafter find to be convenient.[289]