Massacre of the Waldensians, 1545.
Protestantism began in France[316] in much the same way as in England. Those who had learned from the Italians to love the Greek language, turned to the New Testament in the original and commenced to study it with new insight. Lefèvre, the most conspicuous of these Erasmus-like reformers, translated the Bible into French and began to preach justification by faith before he had ever heard of Luther. He and his followers won the favor of Margaret, the sister of Francis I and queen of the little kingdom of Navarre, and under her protection they were left unmolested for some years. The Sorbonne, the famous theological school at Paris, finally stirred up the suspicions of the king against the new ideas. While, like his fellow-monarchs, Francis had no special interest in religious matters, he was shocked by an act of desecration ascribed to the Protestants, and in consequence forbade the circulation of Protestant books. About 1535 several adherents of the new faith were burned, and Calvin was forced to flee to Basel, where he prepared a defense of his beliefs in his Institutes of Christianity. This is prefaced by a letter to Francis in which he pleads with him to protect the Protestants.[317] Francis, before his death, became so intolerant that he ordered the massacre of three thousand defenseless peasants who dwelt on the slopes of the Alps, and whose only offense was adherence to the simple teachings of the Waldensians.[318]
Persecution under Henry II, 1547–1559.
Francis' son, Henry II (1547–1559), swore to extirpate the Protestants, and hundreds of them were burned. Nevertheless, Henry's religious convictions did not prevent him from willingly aiding the German Protestants against his enemy Charles V, especially when they agreed to hand over to him three bishoprics which lay on the French boundary,—Metz, Verdun, and Toul.
Francis II, 1559–1560, Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Guises.
Henry II was accidentally killed in a tourney and left his kingdom to three weak sons, the last scions of the house of Valois, who succeeded in turn to the throne during a period of unprecedented civil war and public calamity. The eldest son, Francis II, a boy of sixteen, succeeded his father. His chief importance for France arose from his marriage with the
Relations of the Guises, Mary Stuart, the Valois, and the Bourbons
daughter of King James V of Scotland, Mary Stuart, who became famous as Mary, Queen of Scots. Her mother was the sister of two very ambitious French nobles, the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine. Francis II was so young that Mary's uncles, the Guises, eagerly seized the opportunity to manage his affairs for him. The duke put himself at the head of the army, and the cardinal of the government. When the king died, after reigning but a year, the Guises were naturally reluctant to surrender their power, and many of the woes of France for the next forty years were due to the machinations which they carried on in the name of the Holy Catholic religion.