Henry III. left no male heirs; consequently Henry of Navarre became the legitimate inheritor of the throne of France. The papal machinery which in vain had been called into requisition to destroy him, was now set in vigorous operation to prevent him from establishing a legal right to his heritage. The Duke of Mayenne, at the head of the Catholics, declared against him; Philip II., king of Spain, claimed the crown; and several unsuccessful attempts were made to assassinate him. But the valor and sagacity of Henry defeated his enemies, and triumphed over all difficulties. The papal machinery was, however, still formidable; and Henry IV., convinced that the blood of his subjects must continue to flow as long as they were governed by a Protestant sovereign, decided to profess the Catholic faith, which of all others he must have sincerely detested. By this politic act of humiliation he acquired for his subjects political security and entire religious liberty, and obtained from the pope a concession to his right to the crown. But in sacrificing principle to expediency he did not conciliate papal malice, nor secure tranquillity to his reign. Conspiracies were rife, female intrigue abounded, bigotry and intolerance gave birth to much violence and disorder, and finally; the long-premeditated assassination of Henry IV. was accomplished by Ravaillac, who stabbed him to the heart with a double-edged sword, the papal symbol of spiritual and temporal power.
The papal machinery during the past reigns had demoralized the nation. The national policy was characterized by a system of falsehood, corruption and intrigue. Princes of the blood were excluded from the throne, on account of their liberal proclivities. Innocent men, women and children were imprisoned, murdered and burnt. Female intrigue, the bane of national peace and virtue predominated in political circles; and public robbery and extravagance laid the foundation of a debt which ultimately broke down the government.
Under Louis XIII., who became King of France in 1610, the papal machinery was directed by Cardinal Richelieu, who governed the king; by M. Tellier, his confessor, and Madame Maitenon, his prostitute, who governed the cabinet. Richelieu gave boldness and craft to the national policy, and consummated the governmental absoluteness which had been initiated by Louis XI. Division of power being more friendly to justice and republicanism than consolidation, the papal political machinery has always vigorously, as well as universally, labored to defeat the first and encourage the second. But what is unfriendly to republicanism is destructive to national prosperity; and consequently the papal intrigues and appliances in favor of absoluteness in France destroyed the greatness of the nation.
The political security and religious liberty which Henry IV. had secured to the subjects were annulled by the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, and Catholic intolerance again domineered over the lives and fortunes of Protestants. Kings had been taught by their teachers and spiritual guides that "to dissemble was to reign," and that "to become a great man it was necessary to become a great villain." The consequence was national weakness and demoralization. Mock treaties were made to conceal real ones, and kings, to disguise their intentions, acted differently from what they thought. A succession of weak, bigoted, tyrannical, and criminal rulers had oppressed the industry of the country, and drove thousands of subjects to seek a livelihood under less oppressive government. Despotic ministers, rapacious favorites, intriguing prostitutes, foolish enterprises absurd laws, professed rakes in the garb of priests and cardinals, prodigality, corruption and tyranny withering the vitality of the nation, and accumulating on the heads of the people an insupportable load of taxation and misery, were the deplorable results of the operation of the pope and his political engine. But while such were the calamities which Catholicism was maturing, the eloquent writings of Voltaire, of Rousseau, and other liberal authors were awakening a spirit of inquiry in the public mind, and preparing the way for political regeneration. The smouldering fires of freedom which burned in the breast of the nation, rendered the conflict between monarchy and republicanism inevitable. It finally took place; the majesty of the people was vindicated; and, a national assembly convened consisting of three hundred and seventeen clergy men, three hundred and seventeen nobles, and six hundred and seventeen deputies of the people; all of whom took an oath never to separate until they had given France a free constitution, From the ruins of the monarchy a republic arose in majesty and power. The feudal estates were abolished without indemnification. The invidious game laws, the feudal tribunals, the church tithes, the ecclesiastical revenues, the hereditary descent of officers, the exemption of church dignities from military taxation, the laws excluding Protestants from offices of trust or profit, and denying them the right of inheriting, acquiring or bequeathing property, and all that the toil of the papal machinery had accumulated on the heads of the people, were swept away by the spirit of liberal government. To obtain this freedom the nation had poured out its blood. But the nation had been educated in Catholic bigotry and intolerance; and now it visited on the heads of its tutors the lessons which they had taught. The people swept away the despotism of the throne, but left it remaining in the national councils; and, while they made a wreck of oppression, they preserved its elements to be reconstructed in another form. It is not, then, surprising, that hard as their freedom was won, it was so easily betrayed by the genius of Napoleon Bonaparte, once its advocate, but always its foe; who hated republicanism as much as he hated papacy, for they both were in conflict with his designs; and who loved nothing but himself and supreme dominion. But the boon he sought his ambition defeated. While he stood at the height of his fortune, with the conquest of Europe in his grasp, the mask fell from his brow. The confidence of freemen forsook him; and his glory, which else might have outrivalled the splendor of the greatest, flickered, grew dim, and soon vanished away; leaving the world as much astonished at the obscurity it left as it had been at the effulgence it had emitted.
CHAPTER XIV. PAPAL POLITICAL INTRIGUES IN GERMANY.
Papal Intrigues in Germany under the reigns of Otho I—of
Henry IV.—of Henry V—of Frederic I—of Frederic II—of
Conrad IV.—of ALbert I—of Henry VII—of Louis of Bavaria—
of Charles IV.—of Sigis-mund—of Charles V.—of Ferdinand
II,—Papal Intrigues in Austria—in Prussia—and in the
Netherlands.
Wittikind the Great, King of Saxony, after a vigorous resistance for thirty-three years against the arms of Charlemagne, the confederate of the pope, submitted to be baptized to spare the further effusion of the blood of his subjects. But in the events of one hundred years, the conquered became the emperors, and the Franks were supplanted on the throne by the Saxons. From the time that the Carlovingian dynasty was established until the dissolution of the empire in 1806, the secular power had to continually struggle against the intrigues and usurpations of the Papal See.
The pope's claim of being the disposer of crowns, and the source of secular power, achieved something of a triumph in 962, when through a crafty policy the pontiff bestowed the diadem on Otho. From motives of policy the emperor conceded the spiritual claims of the pope, but prudently nullified them by placing him under his authority. While Otho acknowledged that he was emperor by the grace of God and the pope, he required the latter, who was John XII., to swear allegiance to him, and the Roman See to enter into a solemn agreement with him that henceforth no pope should be chosen except in the presence of a Germanic imperial commission. This judicious check on the intriguing policy of the Papal See, was too unpleasant to be tolerated longer than weakness made it unavoidable. Presumptuous as false, Pope John XII. was led to violate his oath of allegiance, and to take up arms to acquire independence of secular authority. For this act of perjury, treason, and violation of a solemn treaty—which in a layman would have been a capital offence, but in a priest was aggravated by the additional crime of hypocrisy—the emperor could not do less than depose him.
In the papal monarchy virtue and ability were seldom conspicuous, and generally when either appeared in its administration, it was less the offspring of Catholicism than of the Germanic authority. The emperors of Germany were far better men than the popes of Rome. While the first labored to reform the church, the latter did little else than corrupt it. Virtue, the foundation of public order and concord, could not but be encouraged in the subjects by a sagacious monarch; and vice, the indulgent mother of fraud and imposition, could not but be cultivated by a crafty and ambitious priest. In the progress of the conduct of the papal and the imperial policy, so mutually antagonistical, Henry III., who became Emperor of Germany in 1046, had to depose three popes, and to fill the papal chair during his life with men of his own choice. He also held the papal monarchy under strict surveillance, and forbade the bestowal of any spiritual dignity, or the appropriation of any church property without his sanction. The wholesome effects of his severity won commendations even from those upon whom they were most rigorously enforced; in proof of which it may be stated that the clergy spontaneously bestowed on him the title of "The Pious," which he condescended to accept.