The resolution of the French government had forced the hand of the Pontiff, who, however, consoled himself by the thought that either the national council would not now take place, or that the Guises would prevail in the States-General, so that the national council could be silenced, if held.[218] The Pope figured that he would force the Catholic princes to side with him, lest by hazarding a change of religion in a national council they would also endanger their kingdoms. Philip II concurred in this belief. A king so orthodox as he had not failed to watch the course of the movement in France upon the ground of religious interests. But the Spanish King had also a political interest in France. His own Flemish and Dutch provinces were turbulent with revolt, and Granvella wrote truly when he said that it was a miracle that with the bad example of France, things were no worse in the Low Countries.[219] Accordingly, Philip II sent Don Antonio de Toledo into France to divert the French King from the idea of a national council.[220] The means of persuasion were readily at hand, for the French King was already far too compromised with Philip II to refuse his request. After the arrest of the vidame of Chartres, Francis II, in a long ciphered letter of August 31, 1560, to his ambassador in Spain, had besought the Spanish king to be prepared to assist him, in case it should be necessary.[221] To forefend the proposed national council, Philip II now offered at his own expense to give the French aid in suppressing all rebellion and schism.[222]
Warlike preparations accordingly went forward under cover of a proposed intervention in Scotland,[223] which the uncertainty regarding Condé and Antoine of Bourbon facilitated, for it was currently believed that both the king of Navarre and the prince absented themselves from court on purpose.[224] At the court the rumor prevailed that both were plotting recourse to arms, so much so that on September 2 the cardinal Bourbon was sent to them, desiring them in the name of the King to repair to the court, which, on the next day, was moved from Fontainebleau to St. Germain.[225] The marshal Brissac was transferred from the government of Picardy to that of Normandy, and Du Bois, master of the footmen, was instructed to conduct all the footmen he could levy with great secrecy into Normandy, while all the men in the ordinary garrison of Picardy and other frontier points were drawn in toward Orleans.[226] At the same time the Rhinegrave was notified to come, but met unexpected opposition.[227]
Parallel with these military preparations new financial measures were taken. On October 11, 1560, the King demanded 100,000 crowns (testons—a silver coin valued at ten or eleven sous; the amount was between $750,000 and $775,000) from the members of the Parlement, the provost, the chief merchants of Paris,[228] and “certain learned men of the Sorbonne.”[229] The Parisians murmured because they thought the military display was meant to intimidate them. In November the crown imposed 10,000 francs (approximately $7,500) upon Orleans and demanded 100,000 more to pay the troops.[230] Lyons furnished a loan[231] and money was also secured by confiscations from the Huguenots on the part of the local authorities in many places.[232]
In the provinces disturbances continued to take place.[233] In Amboise and Tours the people stormed the prisons and released all those who had been confined as agitators on account of religion.[234] The valley of the Loire seems to have been the storm center of these provincial uprisings, and in the middle of October[235] the king came hastily to Orleans with three companies of veteran infantry from the garrisons of Picardy.[236] It was now decided to convene the States-General at Orleans instead of Meaux.[237] On October 30 the prince of Condé, who all along had borne himself as if innocent and who came with his brother to Orleans, was arrested,[238] and the vidame of Chartres, who had been incarcerated in the Bastille, was sent for from Paris that he might be examined face to face with Condé.[239] Besides being accused of implication in the conspiracy of Amboise, he was accused of being the author of the recent insurrection at Lyons.[240]
A significant change was made in the provincial administration at this time. The Guises, having observed the dissatisfaction that prevailed because so many offices, dignities, and commissions had been distributed among them, in order to fling a sop to the princes of the blood and their faction, advised the King to create two new governments in the middle of the kingdom in favor of the duke of Montpensier and his brother, the prince de la Roche-sur-Yon. In compliance with this suggestion the government of Touraine, to which province was added the duchies of Anjou and Vendôme and the counties of Maine, Blois, and Dunois, was created in favor of the former, and the government of Orleans, to which was added the duchies of Berry, the pays Chartrain, the Beauce, Montargis, and adjacent places, in favor of the latter. But the new office was reduced to a shadowy power by the revolutionary step of appointing provincial lieutenants over the governors, who were responsible to the duke of Guise as lieutenant-general of the realm, in this case the sieur de Sipierre being lieutenant in the Orléannais and Savigny in Touraine, each of whom was a servitor of the Guises.[241]
There is little reason to doubt that the Huguenots would have made a formidable revolt at this early day if they had been certain of effective leadership. But the cowardice of Antoine of Navarre, the logical leader of the party, prevented them from so doing. The great influence he might have exerted as first prince of the blood was in singular contrast with his weak character.[242] His policy, which he flattered himself to be a skilful one of temporization, was looked upon with contempt by the Huguenots, who despised him for weakly suffering his brother to be so treated and then added to his pusillanimity by foregoing his governorship of Guyenne, which was given to the marshal Termes.[243] In vain the Huguenot leaders urged upon him their supplications and their remonstrances;[244] in vain they laid before him the details of their organization; that six or seven thousand footmen throughout Gascony and Poitou were already enrolled under captains; that between three and four thousand, both foot and horse, would come from Provence and Languedoc; that from Normandy would come as many or even more, with a great number of cavalry; that with the aid of all these he would be able to seize Orleans (thus controlling the States-General), and Bourges, with Orleans the two most important towns in central France. They assured him that thousands were merely waiting for a successful stroke to declare themselves and that money was to be had in plenty; for every cavalryman and every footman was supplied with enough money for two months and that much more would be forthcoming, provided only the king of Navarre would declare himself the protector of the King and the realm and oppose the tyranny of the Guises.[245]
This was the moment chosen by Catherine de Medici to assert herself. Hitherto, there had been no room for her between the two parties, each of which aspired to absolute control of the King. The queen mother had no mind to see herself reduced to a simple guardian of the persons of her children, utterly dependent upon the action of the council, without political authority nor “control of a single denier,”[246] and perceived that she might now fish to advantage in the troubled waters; to change the figure, she determined to play each party against the other[247] in the hope of herself being able to hold the balance of power between them. This explains her double-dealing after the conspiracy of Amboise, when she represented to Coligny that she wished to be instructed in the Huguenot teachings in order, if possible, that she might be able to discover the “true source and origin of the troubles,” and conferred with Chaudien, the Protestant pastor in Paris, and Duplessis, the Huguenot minister at Tours, at the same time also inquiring into the political claims of the Huguenots, having the cardinal of Lorraine concealed, like Polonius, behind the arras;[248] why, too, she used fair words at the conference at Fontainebleau and simultaneously saw Francis II write to Philip II asking for Spanish aid in the event of civil war.
The Venetian ambassador said truly that the famous Roman temporizer, Fabius Cunctator, would have recognized his daughter in this astute woman of Etruria.[249] For fear of being sent back to Italy or of staying in France without influence, she aimed to play the two parties against one another. She did not hesitate to hazard the crown in order to keep the government in her hands, although, as the Venetian ambassador said, “to wish to maintain peace by division is to wish to make white out of black.”[250]