Biron was sent into Provence in 1563 with instructions to give an account to the King of the manner in which justice was administered there and how the edict was executed. He was also to find the count of Tendes and Sommerive and express the King’s displeasure of their conduct. The royal instructions are evidence of the sincerity with which the government started to execute the edict (La Ferrière, Rapport, 46; cf. Collection Trémont, sér. 3, p. 124).
[688] C. S. P. For., No. 424, §16; No. 590, April 8, 1563; Forbes, II, 379.
[689] C. S. P. Ven., March 23, 1563. “Response faicte par le Roy (Charles IX) et son Conseil, aux Presidens et Conseillers de sa Cour de Parlement de Paris: Sur la remonstrance faicte à sa dicte maiesté, concernant la déclaration de sa Maiorité, et ordonnance faicte pour le bien, et repos publique de son Royaume” (Lyons, Rigaud, 1563).
In the first week of May the King summoned the members of the Parlement of Paris and the authorities of the city to St. Germain, commanding them before the week was out to obey the Edict of Toleration, to release those imprisoned for religion, and to lay down their arms (C. S. P. For., No. 703, §3, May 4, 1563). Paris finally published the edict, but observed it slightly, the Parlement admitting the “graces” of the edict, but saying it could not in its conscience allow two religions (ibid., No. 1190, 835, June 2, 1563). For an example of the violence of the capital see No. 895, June 15, 1562. The public criers and the very horses which they used in the crying of the edict in the city of Paris were in danger of being killed by the populace, which poured out of the mouths of the streets (Claude Haton, I, 328).
[690] “Le peuple y est fort sedicieux.”—Fourquevaux to St. Sulpice, October 13, 1563, L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 165.
[691] Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, II, Introd., iv.
[692] C. S. P. Ven., March 29, April 10 and 20, 1563. On the prince de Porcien, see Le Laboureur, I, 389; also an article by Delaborde in Bulletin de la Soc. prot. franç., XVIII, 2. Claude Haton gives some vivid details about this retirement of the reiters (Vol. I, p. 355). Cf. Correspondance de Catherine de Médicis, II, 15, 16, 42. On the case of the Three Bishoprics see St. Sulpice, ibid.; C. S. P. Ven., March 29, April 10, 1563; C. S. P. For., Nos. 323, §8, and 419, §5, 420, 455; Nég. Tosc., III, 403.
[693] Claude Haton, I, 279, 280.
[694] See the interesting account of an unsuccessful attempt by the reiters to storm a château (Claude Haton, I, 347-49).
[695] Claude Haton, I, 354.