The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

Among the acknowledged rights of the Crown of France was that of receiving the emoluments of all benefices during vacancy, which was known as the regale, but it was a right which depended solely upon custom, and obtained only in the ancient dominions of the Crown of France. In spite of this, in 1673, Louis XIV., pursuing his usual policy of royal aggrandisement, issued an edict asserting that according to law and to custom the regale applied to all the bishoprics of the kingdom. Denied by the Pope. On this the bishops of Pamiers and Alais, who were theologically opposed to the Jesuit influence dominant in the court, protested and appealed to the Pope, Innocent XI. who at once gave his decision in their favour. This action on the part of the bishops and the Pope raised the question out of the category of a money dispute between the Crown and some of the clergy, into that of a grave constitutional question between the Church of France and the Pope. Men asked themselves in France what right the Pope had to interfere with the emoluments of the Crown, just as in England one hundred and fifty years before they had asked themselves by what right the Pope claimed the first-fruits of English benefices. But Louis XIV. was fortunate enough to find ready to his hand a champion of his cause far more noble than a Cranmer or a Cromwell. To the orthodoxy of Sir Thomas More, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, added the fervid eloquence of S. Bernard and the learning and taste of Erasmus. In him the flame of patriotism burned at fever heat. Deeply imbued with the principles of his age loyalty was to him the first of virtues, and the king dilated before his dazzled eyes, not as the grasping tyrant that he really was, but as the God-given champion of an oppressed Church. The four Resolutions, 1682. Bossuet felt that the mantle of Gerson and d’Ailly had descended upon him, and at the bidding of the king, under his leadership, the French clergy set themselves to follow up the work of the council of Constance and put limits to the autocracy of the Roman Pontiff. Constitutionalism once more raised its head for a brief period within the bounds of the Roman obedience. In 1682 the king summoned an assembly of clergy to meet at S. Germain and consider the difficulty. Bossuet at once took the lead, and at his instigation the assembly recognised the right of the king to the regale all over France, and passed four resolutions on the limits of the power of the Pope.

(1) That sovereigns are not subject to the Pope in things temporal, neither can they be deposed by him nor their subjects freed from their oaths of allegiance by him.

(2) That a general council is superior to the Pope.

(3) That the power of the Pope is subject to the regulations and canons of councils, and he cannot decide anything contrary to the rules and constitutions of the Gallican Church.

(4) That the decisions of the Pope are not irreformable, except by the consent of the universal Church.

These resolutions thus passed by the clergy were registered by the Parlements, and accepted by the Sorbonne, and became law of the land which all loyal subjects were bound to obey.

Constitutional question between the Crown and the Pope.

Thus was raised once more the old constitutional question between the Church and the Pope. The decisions of the Assembly of S. Germain had behind them a weight of authority and practice, unquestioned in the primitive Church, repeatedly asserted in the medieval Church, formulated at the council of Constance, lately vindicated at serious risk by the English Church, but clean contrary to the pretensions of the Hildebrandine Papacy and the decisions of the council of Trent. It was absurd to expect that a Pope however weak could at a moment’s notice turn his back upon a theory on which the Papacy had continuously acted for six hundred years. Innocent felt that he had no choice in the matter. He at once condemned the decrees, and refused to issue the usual bulls sanctioning the consecration of priests who had accepted them to the episcopate. Before many years had passed there were no less than thirty sees in France without a bishop, and hundreds of cures without canonically instituted priests. The condition of affairs was singularly like that in England when the statute in restraint of the payment of Annates was passed. Analogy to the English Reformation. Each country had solemnly asserted a view of the constitutional rights of the Church within its borders, which was diametrically opposed to that of the Papacy, and was denounced by the Curia as schismatical. In support of the national theory the majority of the clergy in each country was prepared to enter at the bidding of the Crown into a contest with the Pope, which could but result in the increase of the royal authority over them. In the mouth of Louis XIV. as in that of Henry VIII. the liberties of the national Church meant in reality the power of the national king. But unlike Henry VIII. Louis XIV. was too wary to be pushed to extremes. He carefully avoided any overt act which could be construed into an undue assertion of independence. He contented himself with a purely negative position. Where bulls were refused the sees remained vacant, and the Crown enjoyed the profits of the vacancy. There was no divorce question to complicate matters. Henry VIII. could not wait, Louis XIV. could. Consequently, in spite of much talk about a patriarchate of France, no definite steps had been taken to increase the difficulties of a settlement, when it became the obvious interest of both sides to restore peace. Settlement of the quarrel, 1693. In 1693, when Louis was involved in the war of the League of Augsburg, and the influence of Madame de Maintenon had become paramount at court, he found the continuance of his quarrel with the Pope both undignified and prejudicial. Innocent XII. the new Pope was willing to meet him half way. The articles of S. Germain were repudiated, the Pope recognised and sanctioned all the royal nominations, and ecclesiastical affairs resumed their wonted channel. Ten years of warfare had done nothing more for Louis than to enrich the literature of France by some valuable works on church-government, and to assist his rival William of Orange to the throne of England.

Policy of Louis toward the Huguenots.

Indirectly, however, there is little doubt that this memorable quarrel with the Pope did much to urge Louis to the committal of the greatest blunder and crime of his reign—the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Since the suppression of their political power by Richelieu the Huguenots had given up all political ambition. Satisfied with the free exercise of their worship permitted by the edict, the Huguenots of the middle class had devoted themselves with great success to industrial employments of various kinds, while numbers of the nobles, who had only embraced Huguenotism from political motives, came back to the Church now that their interest and associations led them in that direction. Even in the troublous days of the Fronde the Huguenots remained strictly and significantly quiet, and when Colbert took up the reins of administration he found among them the most skilful the most industrious and the most loyal of French artisans. Unfortunately in the eyes of Louis XIV. and of Louvois their very loyalty and their wealth proved reasons for their persecution. The time had come, as it seemed to them, when the work of Richelieu might be safely pushed to completion. All that he had been able to do was to draw the poison fangs of the serpent, the time had now come when the monster itself might be scotched and killed. The very existence of a special law in favour of one class recognised an imperfection in the uniformity of the body politic. France would not be herself till she was one in religious as in political allegiance.