There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation seemed destined to achieve far ampler conquests over the dominion of Papal Rome than they have ultimately realized. France, in particular, at the commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, appeared to be almost won over to Protestantism. The Huguenots (as the followers of the Reformed Faith in that country were termed) formed the most influential, if not the largest part of the population of many of the principal provinces, and of nearly all the provincial capitals; they were numerous in Paris; nor was there a single district or town in France in which they had not obtained converts and power, before the war of 1562.
The history of the Reformation in France is a mournful one; but it presents names to our notice which every good heart must delight to honor; and foremost of these is the name of Gaspard de Coligni, the statesman, the soldier, and the saint; who long was the stoutest champion of the Protestant cause, and finally became the most glorious of its many martyrs. Unlike his comrade Condé, he was proof against the vicious blandishments of the enemy's court, as well as against the terrors of their camps. Familiar with defeat, he never learned despair. Hallam has well compared his indomitable energy to the
"Atrocem animam Catonis;"
but the Huguenot chief, while fully equal to the ancient Roman in probity, in self-reliance, and in unflinching fortitude, was far superior to him in comprehensiveness of judgment and in fertility of resources; and moreover, the affectionate gentleness which marked the private life of Coligni, contrasts favorably with the stoic coarseness by which the character of Cato was deformed.
The father of Coligni was head of an ancient and noble house, and was the seigneur of Châtillon-sur-Lion. At his death, in 1522, he left three sons, then of tender years, all of whom became eminent in French history, and all of whom embraced the Protestant doctrines, though trained up in the Romish Church. The elder brother, who is known as the Cardinal de Châtillon, was raised to that high ecclesiastical dignity by Clement VII., in 1533. Chiefly through the influence which his younger brother exerted over him, he became a convert to the tenets of the Reformers in his middle age, and took part in the early scenes of the civil wars. After the reverse which his party sustained at the battle of St. Denys, he fled to England, where he died in 1571. The younger brother, Dandelot, was the first of the three who became a Protestant. He was a skilful and gallant soldier, and signalized himself repeatedly by his enterprise, his inexhaustible resources, and undaunted spirit, as a commander of the Huguenot forces from the first outbreak of the religious wars until his death soon after the battle of Jarnac, in 1569. Gaspard, the great Coligni, or the Admiral (as he is often termed, from having held the titular office of Admiral of France), was the middle one of the three brothers, and was born at Châtillon-sur-Lion, February 16, 1517. He served with distinction in the later wars of Francis I. against Spain; and with his brother Dandelot received knighthood on the field of battle at Cerisoles. He was afterward raised to the important post of colonel-general of the French infantry, and in 1552 was nominated by Henry II. Admiral of France. He was taken prisoner at St. Quentin by the Spaniards, and underwent a long captivity in Spain before he regained his liberty by payment of a heavy ransom.
During the long hours of solitude and compulsory inaction which he passed in his Spanish prison, he meditated deeply and earnestly on religious subjects; and after his return to France, the conversation of his brother Dandelot, who had already joined the Huguenots, confirmed the bias to the Protestant doctrines, which his own studies and deliberations had created. Coligni now resigned all his appointments and preferments, except the nominal rank of admiral, and retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion, and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of French Protestants in America; but his projects proved unsuccessful; and as the tyranny of the violent party among the French Catholics grew more and more alarming, Coligni deemed that both honor and conscience required him to stand openly forward in behalf of his co-religionists.
No class of men ever were more long-suffering, or showed more unwillingness to rise in arms against their domestic tyrants, than the much-calumniated Huguenots of France. When we read the hideous edicts that were promulgated against them, and which were not mere empty threats, but were carried into execution throughout the land with unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the right of self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was so in their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice that their rulers offered them. Mackintosh, in his "History of the English Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when subjects are justified in making war on their sovereign, "a tremendous problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality, by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and man.
Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the emphatic language of Milton, "let loose the sword of intestine war, soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted, and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise (known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Francis II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Condé is to be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his blameless exertions; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January, 1562, an edict was issued, called the "Edict of Pacification," giving a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal proceedings on the ground of religion.
This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of his adherents: "If we have our religion, what do we want more?" But those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were cruel, and the fair promise which France seemed to have acquired of tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed.