Clement had become hard to please. If the Medici were the descendants of a merchant, the Sforzas came from a peasant, a leader of free troops, a condottiere. Clement looked down upon the Duke of Milan. 'Besides,' says Guiccardini, 'he burnt with desire to marry his niece to the second son of Francis I.'[371] This is what he always came back to. Charles told him that Francis wanted, by this offer, to break up the Italian league, and when that was done, the marriage would be broken off too.[372] But Clement maintained that the king was sincere in his offer. 'Good!' said the emperor to the pope; 'there is a very simple means of satisfying yourself on that point. Ask the two cardinals to procure immediately from France the powers necessary for settling the marriage contract. You will soon see whether his proposal is anything better than base money which they want to palm off upon you.'[373]
The emperor's remarks were not without their effect upon Clement: he was thoughtful and uneasy. The French ambassadors had been lavish of words, but there was nothing written: verba volant. The pope caught at the idea suggested by Charles. If the full powers do not arrive, the king's treachery is unveiled; if they arrive, the game is won. Clement asked for them. 'Nothing is more easy,' said Tournon and Gramont, who wrote to their master without delay.[374]
=THE KING'S HESITATION.=
Francis I. was startled when he received their despatch. His proposal was sincere, for he thought it necessary to his policy; but the remarks of Charles V. and Henry VIII. about the daughter of the Florentine merchant, and the astonishment of Europe, which unanimously protested against 'such great disparity of degree and condition,'[375] had sunk into his mind. He, so proud of his blood and of his crown ... countenance a misalliance! He hesitated; he would only proceed slowly ... step by step ... and with a long interval after each.[376] If Charles, who was impatient to return to Spain, should leave Italy without banding it against France ... then ... new facts, new counsel ... he would consider. But now he was driven to the wall: the question must be answered. Shall Catherine de Medici come and sit on the steps of the throne of St. Louis, or shall she remain in Italy? Shall she continue to receive abominable lessons from her relative Alexander de Medici, a detestable prince who exiled and imprisoned even the members of his own family, and confiscated their property, and was addicted to the most scandalous debauchery? ... or shall she come to France to put in practice those lessons among the people of her adoption? The king must make up his mind: the courier was waiting. One thing decided him. His old gaoler, the emperor, said that this marriage proposal was a trick. If Francis refused what the pope asked, Charles would triumph, and turn against him both pope and Italy. The king's ambition was stronger than his vanity, and coming to a desperate resolution, he had the full powers drawn up, signed, and sent off.[377]
They arrived at Bologna about the middle of February. Albany, Gramont, and Tournon carried them in triumph to the pope, who immediately communicated them to the emperor. The latter read the procuration, which contained 'an express clause for settling the marriage of the Duke of Orleans with the Duchess of Urbino,' and was greatly surprised.[378] 'You see,' said Clement, 'there is no hole by which he can creep out.' Charles could not believe it. 'The king has only sent this document for a show,' he said to Clement; 'if you press the ambassadors to go on and conclude the treaty, they will not listen to you.'[379] A little while ago there had been nothing but words, and now there was only a piece of paper.... The new propositions were communicated to the duke and the two cardinals, who replied: 'We offer to stipulate forthwith the clauses, conditions, and settlements that are to be included in the contract.'[380]
=THE EMPEROR'S NEW MANŒUVRES.=
Clement breathed again, and believed in the star of the Medici. If that star had placed his ancestors the Florentine merchants at the head of their people, it might well raise Catherine, the niece of two popes, the daughter and grand-daughter of dukes, to the throne of France. He informed the emperor that everything was arranged, and that the terms of the contract were being drawn up. Clement's face beamed with joy. The emperor began to think the matter serious, 'and was astonished and vexed above all,' says Du Bellay, 'at the frustration of his plan, which was to excite the holy father against the king.' Charles saw that the impetuosity of Francis had been too much for his own slowness; but he knew how to retrace his steps, and the fecundity of his genius suggested a last means of breaking up 'this detestable cabal.'—'Since it is so,' he said, 'I require your holiness at least to include among the conditions of the contract now drawing up, the four articles agreed to between us, the first time you spoke to me of this marriage.' Clement appeared surprised, and asked what articles they were. 'You promised me,' said Charles, 'first that the king should bind himself to alter nothing in Italy; second, to confirm the treaties of Cambray and Madrid; third, to consent to a council; and fourth, to get the King of England to promise to make no innovations in his country until the matter of his divorce was settled at Rome.' The King of France would never agree to such conditions; the pope was dismayed. Would he be wrecked just as he had reached the harbour?—'I made no such promises,' he exclaimed eagerly. 'The holy father,' says Du Bellay, 'formally denied ever having heard of these matters.'[381] The altercation between the two chiefs of christendom threatened to be violent. Which of them was the liar? Probably the pope had said something of the kind, but only for form's sake, in order to pacify Charles, and without any intention of keeping his promise. He was the first to recover his calmness; he detested the emperor, but he humoured him. 'You well know, Sire,' he said, 'that the profit and honour accorded by the king to my family in accepting my alliance, are so great, that it belongs to him and not to me to propose conditions.'[382] He offered, however, to undertake that everything should remain in 'complete peace.' The emperor, a master in dissimulation, tried to conceal his vexation, but without success; this unlucky marriage baffled all his plans. Francis had been more cunning than himself.... Who would have thought it? The King of France had sacrificed the honour of his house, but he had conquered his rival. Confounded, annoyed, and dejected, Charles paced up and down with his long gloomy face, when an unexpected circumstance revived his hopes of completely embroiling the pope and the King of France.
We have witnessed the conferences that took place between Clement and Charles on the subject of a general council. The emperor had asked for one in order 'to bring back the heretics to union with the holy faith, and he observed that if it were not called, it was to be feared that the heretics would unite with the Turks; that they would fancy themselves authorised to lay hands upon the property of the Church, and would succeed in living in that liberty which they called evangelical, but which,' added Charles, 'is rather Mahometan, and would cause the ruin of christendom.'[383] The pope, who thought much more of himself and of his family than of the Church, had rejected this demand. He had smiled at seeing the great potentate's zeal for the religious and evangelical question.... Clement never troubled himself about the Gospel: Machiavelli was the gospel of the Medici. They cherished it, and meditated on it day and night; they knew it by heart, and put it into admirable practice. Clement and Catherine were its most devoted followers and most illustrious heroes.
=A LAY COUNCIL PROPOSED.=
The policy of the King of France was quite as interested, but it was more frank and honest. Even while politically uniting with the pope, he did not mean to place himself ecclesiastically under his guardianship. He had, like Henry VIII., the intention of emancipating kings from the pontifical supremacy, and desired to make the secular instead of the papal element predominate in christian society. For many centuries the hierarchical power had held the first rank in Europe: it was time that it gave way to the political power. Francis, having come to a knowledge of the opposite opinions of the pope and the emperor touching the council, slipped between the two and enunciated a third, which filled the emperor with astonishment and the pontiff with alarm. It was one of the greatest, most original, and boldest conceptions of modern times: we recognise in it the genius of Du Bellay and the aspirations of a new era. 'It is true, as the holy father affirms,' said the King of France, 'that the assembling of a council has its dangers. On the other hand, the reasons of the emperor for convoking it are most worthy of consideration; for the affairs of religion are reduced to such a pass that, without a council, they will fall into inextricable confusion, and the consequence will be great evils and prejudice to the holy father and all christian princes. The pope is right, yet the emperor is not wrong; but here is a way of gratifying their wishes, and at the same time preventing all the dangers that threaten us.[384] Let all the christian potentates, whatever be their particular doctrine (the King of England and the protestant princes of Germany and the other evangelical states, were therefore included), first communicate with one another on the subject, and then let each of them send to Rome as soon as possible ambassadors provided with ample powers to discuss and draw up by common accord all the points to be considered by the council. They shall have full liberty to bring forward anything that they imagine will be for the unity, welfare, and repose of christendom, the service of God, the suppression of vice, the extirpation of heresy, and the uniformity of our faith. No mention shall be made of the remonstrances of our holy father, or of the decisions of former councils; which would give many sovereigns an opportunity or an excuse for not attending.[385] When the articles are thus drawn up by the representatives of the various states of christendom, each ambassador will take a duplicate of them to his court, and all will go to the council, at the time and place appointed by them, well instructed in what they will have to say. If those who have separated from the Roman Church agree with the others, they will in this way take the path of salvation. If they do not agree, at least they will not be able to deny that they have been deaf to reason, and refused the council which they had called for so loudly.'[386]