Chapter XVIII: Book III (1)

FROM THE PROMULGATION TO THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

(1598-1685.)

I.

The compromise between the two religious communions met with the approval of good men; but it was slow in passing from the law into the ideas and manners [of the people].

The (Roman) Catholic clergy made the strongest protestations against the Edict of Nantes, and Clement VIII. wrote to say that “a decree, which gave _liberty of conscience to all, was the most accursed that had ever been made_.” The university, governed by the Sorbonne and the Jesuits, wished to close the gates of the colleges against the Huguenots; and several Parliaments even raised serious obstacles against the registration of the edict.

Little by little, however, passions died away; and in spite of the quarrels, which were inevitable after such cruel conflicts, the twelve years which elapsed from the promulgation of the edict to the death of the king, form one of the most tranquil epochs of the French Reformation. The old historians express but one regret,—that the reign of Henry IV. had not lasted twelve years longer, in order to have given him time to perfect his work of reconciliation.

Proselytism, already confined within narrow limits by the religious wars, almost entirely ceased after the edict, at least on the part of the Calvinists. The (Roman) Catholics alone continued to enlist a few adherents; but politics weighed more in this cause than argument. Huguenot gentlemen went through the Church of Rome in order to pass into the antechambers of the court.

The priests wished above all things to gain over the pastors. They even became generous in the cause, and upon the authority of a papal brief, they raised a fund to produce thirty thousand livres a year, for the purpose of giving pensions to those ministers and professors, who should be tempted to abjure. But no one could be found to draw upon the purse of the clergy on such conditions.

From 1598 to 1610 the Calvinists entered little into state affairs. The young Henry de Condé had been summoned to Paris in 1595, on the promise that he should be left to the enjoyment of the religion of his father. Scarcely, however, had he arrived before he was placed in the hands of zealous (Roman) Catholics, and he was not only converted, but he became a _converter_. This prince rewarded his domestics with fifteen sous every time they went to confess, provided they brought him certificates in due form.

One single member of the family of the Bourbons, Catherine of Navarre, sister of Henry IV., remained faithful to the religion of Jeanne d’Albret. She manifested a singular constancy; and upon a false report that she had been to mass, wrote to Mornay—“I shall go there when you become pope.”

She pursued her devotional exercises at Saint Germain-en-Laye, after the entry of Henry IV. into Paris, in order to avoid altercations. But one day, having caused the marriage of a niece of Coligny to be celebrated at the Louvre, and having had for this occasion the doors thrown open during the sermon, the priests bitterly complained. “You are bold,” said the king to them, “to hold such language in my house, and with reference to my sister.” “But a marriage has been performed.” “Well, since it is over, what would you have me do in the matter?”

This trifling incident serves to show how the clergy at that time watched the Reformers with hostile eyes, tightening their chain when it could be done, but never permitting it to be loosened.

It does not appear that the Béarnese king ever set his mind upon his sister’s abjuration, and he would even refer the Calvinists to her, when he found it difficult to comply with their requests. “Address yourselves to my sister,” said he, laughing, to some gentlemen from Saintonge; “for your state has fallen under the spindle.”

He desired in the end to marry her to the Duke de Bar, of the house of Lorraine. This affair, of so little intrinsic importance, occupied the attention of the royal council, the Holy See, and the synods for a long time. A disputation was held before the princess between a doctor of the Sorbonne and a professor of Sedan, which did not, however, result in Catherine’s forsaking her faith. The pope refused to give a dispensation for the marriage; the prelates, in their turn, also refused to move any further; whilst the king, whom these delays disgusted, conceived the idea of summoning his natural brother, the archbishop of Rouen, to his cabinet, a worldly priest, who consented to give the nuptial benediction.

The marriage was not a happy one. The sister of Henry IV. had to suffer coldness and ill-treatment from the Duke de Bar, who allowed himself to be wholly led by the Jesuits. She died in 1604, and no Bourbon since that time has belonged to the Reformed communion.

Some noblemen of high rank still endeavoured to draw the Huguenots into their individual quarrels, but they were not listened to. The Duke de Bouillon, among others, who had been compromised in the conspiracy of Marshal Biron, invited his co-religionists to come to his aid. “It is necessary,” said he, “that the ministers and the churches, altogether, without exception or distinction, should defend this very just and important cause.” Some gentlemen rose at his call, but the majority did not respond to it. The freedom, guaranteed by the Edict of Nantes, satisfied the Consistorialists, and the others could effect nothing without them.

If some political assemblies continued to meet, it was only every third year. They sometimes consisted of seventy members, namely, thirty gentlemen, twenty delegates of the _Tiers-parti_, and twenty pastors. They displayed no spirit of faction, and commonly confined themselves to drawing up statements of grievances, and to naming two general deputies for the protection of the interests of the churches at court.

The king, without absolutely interdicting these meetings, took umbrage at them, and, through Sully, expressed his sentiments to the assembly of Châtellerault. “If Henry IV.,” answered the delegates, “were immortal, we, content with his word in everything respecting ourselves, would instantly renounce the thought of the slightest precaution; we would abandon our places of security; we would consider every individual rule useless for the preservation of our society. But the dread of finding different sentiments in one of his successors” (was not their caution prophetic?) “compels us to preserve the measures, which have been taken for our safety.”

The national synods also assembled in a more regular manner than they had done hitherto. Five were held from the Edict of Nantes to 1609. Pastors, elders, and the faithful, each and all, understood that the exact observance of the synodal system was essential to the prosperity of their religion. There was no discussion, no circumstance of any importance, that did not, either directly or by way of appeal, come before this high tribunal, where local passions were without influence with reference to the common interest.

One of the attributes of the national synods was to dole out the _deniers de l’octroi du roi_, or the king’s gift, among the provinces and the academies, which amounted, or rather ought to have amounted (for the funds were not very exactly paid), to forty-five thousand crowns. A professor of theology received seven hundred livres a year; a professor of Hebrew or Greek, or of philosophy, four hundred livres; the regents of the colleges, from one hundred and fifty to three hundred livres. The academies, maintained by the synods, were established at Montauban, Saumur, Nismes, Montpellier, and Sédan; of these, the two first were the most flourishing.

A question, which greatly agitated these assemblies, and became almost a state affair, was an article that was added, in 1603, to the confession of faith by the national synod of Gap, in which the Roman pontiff was accused of being _Antichrist_. We cite this article as a monument of the ideas and language of the times: “Since the bishop of Rome—having erected a monarchy in Christendom, by grasping at domination over all the churches and pastors—has raised himself to the point of calling himself God, to seek to be adored, to boast that he is all-powerful in heaven and on earth, to dispose of all ecclesiastical matters, to decide upon articles of faith, to authorize and interpret the Scriptures at his pleasure; to traffic in souls, to dispense from vows and oaths, to order new services to God; and, with reference to government, to tread underfoot the legitimate authority of magistrates, by taking away, giving, and exchanging kingdoms; we believe and maintain that he is properly the _Antichrist_ and the _son of perdition_ prophesied of in the Word of God, under the emblem of the scarlet woman....”

This article made a great noise. It followed upon some theses with reference to the same subject, which had been brilliantly supported by Jérémie Ferrier, a pastor of Nismes, and submitted to the Parliament of Toulouse. The adhesion of the national synod of Gap conferred much more consequence upon them. The legate loudly complained; the pope was extremely angry; the king expressed his displeasure, saying that the decision of the synod threatened to endanger the peace of the kingdom; and the ardent (Roman) Catholics did not fail to represent this affair as a personal insult to him, or even as an act of rebellion against his crown.

A long and difficult negotiation ensued. At length the national synod of La Rochelle, convoked in 1607, decided that, though it unanimously approved of the contested article, and held it to be conformable with what had been predicted in the Scriptures, it consented, at the express command of the sovereign, to omit it from the confession of faith. In retaliation, it directed one of its members to prove the justice of the accusation, and the pastor Vignier acquitted himself of the commission in a book entitled, _The Theatre of Antichrist_.

We must, to understand this perseverance, bear in mind, that controversy was carried on at that time with extreme bitterness. The pen and the tongue having replaced the sword, passions, which had no longer another vent, were brought into this new battle-field. The necessities of these polemics were so great, that by a singular resolution, the national synod of Saint Maixent distributed the most difficult points of controversy among the provinces, with directions to have them examined by persons capable of successfully opposing, on all occasions, the (Roman) Catholic doctors.

This contest assumed sometimes considerable importance, as was the case with the conference opened at Fontainebleau, on the 14th of May, 1600, between Duplessis-Mornay and Duperron.

Mornay, in a treatise upon the Eucharist, had collected five or six thousand texts of the Fathers, which appeared to him opposed to the doctrine of transubstantiation. This was, so to speak, the voice of the first centuries of Christianity, which he summoned to testify against the inventions of succeeding ages, and all the venerable doctors of the primitive church rose one after the other, in his book, to protest against the alteration of the Sacrament of the Supper. This treatise was at the same time both a religious and political event; and this is not to be wondered at, if we reflect, on the one side, that the author had lived thirty years in familiarity with the king; on the other, that the dogma of the Eucharist was the great question of the era between (Roman) Catholicism and the Reformation. It was upon this point that the sentences of death pronounced against the heretics had been principally founded, and nothing contributed more, as we have seen, to break up the colloquy of Poissy.

The Cardinal de Medicis, legate of the pope, sent six copies of Mornay’s work to Rome, promising to have it refuted by Bellarmine. In place of a refutation, there came despatches from Clement VIII. denouncing a new conspiracy on the part of the heresy. Henry IV. was the more vexed at this because he was then suing before the Holy See for a divorce from his marriage with Marguérite de Valois. The Parliaments also took part in the quarrel; and during a whole winter, the pulpits of the old preachers of the League re-echoed with violent anathemas against the audacious adversary of the real presence.

Henry IV. made known his displeasure to Mornay, by means of M. de la Force. “I have always regulated my services,” answered Mornay, “according to the following order—first to God, then to my king, next to my friends; and I cannot, with a good conscience, change my method.”

However, Duperron, bishop of Evreux, said publicly, that he had discovered in the tract “_more than five hundred enormous falsehoods_,” and that he would undertake to prove them [to be so]. The report of this having reached Mornay, he accused this assertion of being an unworthy calumny, and demanded the opportunity of justifying himself in a public conference.

At the single word “_public conference_,” the legate, the bishop of Paris, the doctors of the Sorbonne raised an outcry; for the priests had generally been worsted in their oral discussions with the theologians of the Reformation. “Rest easy,” said the king, “the affair shall be so well conducted that the defeat shall be with the heretics.”

For this end Henry IV. chose as judges of the controversy four very decided (Roman) Catholics, and only two Calvinists, who were moreover suspected. Dufrêne Canaye, who had already pledged his troth to the king to embrace (Roman) Catholicism, and De Casaubon, who, caring only for Greek and Latin manuscripts, affected great indifference for matters of faith. It is related of him that he replied to his son, who asked for his blessing, after having entered the order of the Capuchins: “I give you my blessing with all my heart: I do not blame you; do not blame me either.”

Mornay perceived the snare, and remonstrated against such a want of impartiality. “Sire,” said he to the king, “if there were nothing more concerned than my life, or even my honour, I would cast them at your feet. But since I am obliged to defend the truth, where the honour of God is concerned, I beseech your majesty to pardon me, if I seek just and reasonable means to secure it.”

Far from acceding fairly to this request, the king answered roughly that he had greatly offended him by attacking the pope, to “_whom he was under more obligations than to his own father_.” “Well! sire,” said Mornay, “since it so pleases God, I see the thing is settled: you will be made to condemn the truth between four walls, and God will give me grace, if I live, to make it echo to the four corners of the world.”

The day was fixed for the conference. Henry had imported into this quarrel so violent a passion that he could not sleep the night preceding. M. de Loménie, who slept in his room, said to him, as an historian writes: “‘Your majesty must take this affair strangely to heart: on the eve of Coutras, Arques, and Ivry, three battles where all was at stake, your majesty was not so troubled.’ All this the king confessed; so eagerly did he desire to content the pope by the ruin of M. Duplessis!”

But the unfair choice of commissioners was not enough. The incriminated texts were not indicated to Mornay until the very day of the conference at one o’clock, and he lost another hour before he could obtain the books that were required to verify his quotations. At eight o’clock, he was summoned to the king’s presence, although the discussion was not to open till noon; the object was, to use the expression of an historian, “_to make him lose his time_.” At this last trait, Mornay’s whole soul was moved with indignation, “Sire,” he exclaimed, “may your majesty pardon me! This extraordinary rigour towards a good servant is unnatural in you.”

When the time had arrived, the lords and ladies of the court, members of the council, magistrates of the Parliament, bishops and priests, were assembled in the great hall of the palace of Fontainebleau. Duperron advanced, with smiling countenance, and proud of a victory he knew to be already won beforehand. Mornay came also, not thinking it possible to retreat without compromising the cause of the Gospel; but he had been able only to verify a very few of his quotations; he was suffering, dejected, and but too certain of the sentence that would be pronounced.

At the opening of the conference, the plan of attack was changed: instead of “enormous falsehoods,” it became merely a question of “_simple mistakes_!” Now, what was there surprising that in a great book wholly filled with quotations, the author should have fallen into some inaccuracies? Mornay did not defend himself well, and upon some thousands of texts, the judges condemned nine. The following night he fell ill, which served as a pretext for breaking up the conference.

Henry wished to sup in the hall of this theological tournament, as he would have done on a field of battle. He announced all over the kingdom the success he had obtained, and he wrote to the Duke d’Epernon: “I have done a marvel.” Duperron was triumphant. “Let us confess the truth,” said the king to him, who could not long repress his humour for raillery, “the good right stood much in need of good aid.”

Clement VIII. manifested great joy at this victory. He annulled the marriage of Henry IV., and sent the cardinal’s hat to Duperron.

It should be noted, in exculpation of Henry IV., that he publicly praised Mornay shortly after the conference, and declared that he had never had a better or a nobler servant. The conscience of the man protested against the diplomacy of the king.

Duplessis returned, broken-hearted, to his government of Saumur. “Courage,” said his wife; “it is God who has done this. Only keep your heart and your mind ready for the work.” He set himself to verify all the texts on the _Eucharist_, and published a new edition, which received the approbation of the theologians of France and Geneva. Neither the king, nor Cardinal Duperron, cared any more about the matter; they had both obtained what they wished.

These were the most important events of the second half of the reign of Henry IV.; and when we recollect the horrible scenes that had preceded them, we are happy that we have only to register theological strifes. If they still stirred up burning passions, human blood no longer flowed.

Divine worship was celebrated almost everywhere without obstacle in the seven hundred and sixty churches that remained to the French Reformation; and when serious grievances were laid before the council, they were redressed. The faithful of Paris had been compelled to open their church in the little village of Ablon, five leagues from the town. The courtiers complained that they could not on the same day discharge their duty to God and the king. The poor also complained of the distance. Some of the children carried to the meetings, according to the discipline, for baptism, had died on the way. The king was touched with these difficulties, and in 1606 permitted the Reformers to exercise their worship at Charenton; which lasted until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Nevertheless, a horrible catastrophe was preparing in the dark. The Jesuits, expelled from the kingdom after the crime of Jean Châtel, had returned, because Henry IV., having to choose between two dangers, preferred having them near him than against him. And when it was urged upon him how wrong it was to recall these perfidious and sanguinary monks; “Ventre-Saint-Gris,” said he, “will you answer for my person.” He tried to gain them by confidence and good services. Father Cotton was even named confessor of the king, and preceptor of the dauphin. But nothing disarmed them, any more than it did the dregs of the people, who, mindful of the sermons of the League, always esteemed the Béarnese king as an excommunicated heretic.

On the 14th of May, 1610, Ravaillac buried his knife in the bosom of Henry IV. This wretch confessed in his interrogatories that he had given way to the temptation to kill him, because in warring against the pope, the king made war against God, “_inasmuch as the pope is God_!” Thus a sacrilegious doctrine had begotten the crime of regicide.

Henry IV. has occupied a great place in the memory and love of the French. He redeemed his weaknesses by eminent qualities, and his very faults by the splendid services which he rendered to his people. It is from his reign, as has been remarked, that the end of the Middle Ages really dates; and the Reformers have ever been grateful to a prince, who was the first that sincerely granted them the free exercise of their religion.

II.

The news of the king’s death re-awakened all the fears of the Calvinists. Many families hastily quitted Paris, although the guardianship of the gates had been confided to burghers of both religions, as if they had been threatened with another Saint Bartholomew. The Duke de Sully shut himself up in the Bastille, of which he was the governor. The Huguenots of the southern provinces took arms. It seemed as if the Edict of Nantes had been torn by the same blow that had pierced the heart of Henry.

From the 22nd of May, the court published a declaration, confirming in the most explicit terms all the edicts of toleration, a useless precaution; for the Reformers believed neither in the power of the regent Marie de Medicis, nor in her good faith. They feared they should find in her, and in her son Louis XIII., then but eight years and a half old, a second Queen Catherine, and a new Charles IX.

Marie de Medicis was governed by two Italian adventurers, Concini and Leonora Galigaï. An ignorant, bigoted, and vindictive woman, with all the vices of ambition unmixed with its qualities, she ruled the great affairs of the state upon the predictions of astrologers, and thought, by throwing herself into the petty intrigues of the court, that she was using the means of government.

The public treasury, under her regency, was given up to the pillage of the great lords, and the kingdom to their turbulent factions. The dukes de Nevers, de Mayenne, d’Epernon, de Longueville, de Vendôme, cantoned themselves each in his province, dictating their conditions of obedience to the crown, and offering to the chiefs of the Calvinists the dangerous example of subordinating the general interest to their personal pretensions.

Some of these were too much inclined to follow such an example, particularly the Duke de Bouillon and the Marshal de Lesdiguières, the former, a man of capacity and good counsel, but committing fault upon fault, through his ambition to be the first person in the kingdom; the latter, skilful and brave upon the field of battle, but loose in morals, unscrupulous as to the means of success, and seduced by the prospect of the constable’s sword. Both pretended to feel a great zeal for religion, in order to win the support of the Huguenots; nevertheless they were soon suspected by their old friends, and did not render to the court the services they had let it to expect.

The Duke de Sully, despoiled of all his offices, imported into the affairs of the Reformation the bad humour of a disgraced minister. He did not always retreat before extreme opinions, but at the moment of passing to the execution of them, his solid sense restrained him, and he never forgot that he had been one of the most faithful servants of the crown.

His son-in-law, the Duke Henry de Rohan, then thirty-two years of age, had begun to show himself, and was preparing to take the highest place in the Calvinist party. Young, active, of almost royal birth, as much attached to study as to the trade of arms, he had already travelled through all the different states of Europe to acquaint himself with their powers and their genius. He was simple and austere in his manners, intrepid, generous, naturally inclined to great achievements, and capable of accomplishing them. His oratory was clear, terse, and vigorous—the true eloquence of a party leader. His religious sentiments inspired more confidence than those of other noblemen of his rank; and history testifies that in all his enterprises, devotion to the Reformed cause prevailed over ambition.

Duplessis-Mornay, either because years had cooled his ardour, or because he had better calculated the small military resources of the Huguenots, inclined to pacific measures, and advised that everything should be borne rather than that they should fly to arms. As soon as he heard of the death of the king, he convoked the magistrates of Saumur, and said to them, “Let us talk no more of Huguenots and Papists; these words are forbidden by the edicts. But were there no edict in existence, if we are Frenchmen, if we love our country, our families, ourselves, they should be henceforth effaced from our minds. There should be only one badge for all. Whoever is a good Frenchman, him will I love as a good citizen, and as a good brother.”

As the court felt at that time the necessity of conciliating the Reformers, it offered to Mornay either money or favours. This disinterested servant of Henry IV. replied to these proposals that it should never be said that he profited by the general misfortune, importuned the mourning of the queen, or afflicted the minority of the king. “I leave to the queen,” he said, “to judge if I deserve anything, should she please to give me what has been long my due. But in this calamity I ask for nothing, and am as grateful as if the queen had bestowed [everything upon me.”]

He applied himself, without relaxation, under the regency of Marie de Medicis, to defeat intrigue, and to appease resentment. The president Jeannin wrote to him after the troubles excited by the Prince de Condé, “You have so conducted yourself during this wretched war, that their majesties are well pleased, and therein acknowledge your prudence and fidelity.” Duplessis-Mornay had reason to know before he died, how oblivious and ungrateful are kings!

All the opposite passions of the Calvinist party appeared together in the political assembly, convoked at first at Châtellerault, and opened at Saumur on the 27th of May, 1611. The court authorized its meeting with repugnance and disquietude, and imposed upon it the condition that it should dissolve as soon as it had prepared the list of the six persons, out of whom the king had to choose two general deputies; but it was very evident that the delegates of the Reformation did not come from all points of the kingdom for the sole purpose of inscribing six names upon a bulletin.

The assembly of Saumur again numbered seventy members,—thirty gentlemen, twenty pastors, sixteen deputies of the _Tiers-état_, and four delegates of the government of La Rochelle, which formed at that time a separate principality. Fifteen provinces were represented, without counting Béarn, whose deputies were admitted after some little hesitation. The principal noblemen of the party had likewise been summoned by special letters. Among them appeared the Marshal de Lesdiguières, the dukes de Bouillon, de Sully, and de Rohan, and Duplessis-Mornay, who, without being of the same rank, compensated for the inferiority of his titles, by his long services and the authority of his character.

The Duke de Bouillon aspired to the presidency, by relying upon the intrigues of the court. He was not elected. Three-fourths of the votes were given for Duplessis-Mornay, and the pastor Chamier was named as vice-president. By this decision the king’s council were plainly told that political passions would not predominate in the assembly, and that its chief object would be the interests of religion, but that upon this article it was resolute not to make any compromise.

The session lasted nearly four months, in the midst of laborious negotiations, the court requiring the prompt dissolution of the assembly, and the latter resolving not to separate until it obtained a redress of its list of grievances. The oath of union was renewed, which consisted in swearing obedience and fidelity to the king, “_the sovereign empire of God remaining always in its entirety_.” This reservation, so legitimate and so unimpeachable in itself, nevertheless opened the door to farther contests. At length the assembly separated, after having chosen and seen two general deputies accepted.

Henry de Rohan displayed his talents as a statesman and great political orator in this assembly. He recommended union, order, the duty of investigating the grievances of the most humble Reformer, of resolutely challenging admission to all offices in the kingdom, and of providing for the safe-keeping of the towns of hostage. “We have come,” said he, “to a cross-way where many roads meet, but there is only one which has any safety for us. The life of Henry the Great maintained it; in this crisis our virtue must do so.... Let our aim be the glory of God and the security of the churches, which He has so miraculously established in this kingdom, striving with ardour for the good of one another, but by legitimate means. Let us be scrupulous in demanding only those things that are necessary; let us be firm in obtaining them.”

Other political assemblies were convened in succeeding years, at Grenoble, Nismes, La Rochelle, Loudun. The old historians distinguish the members who composed them, by the following qualifications: _the ambitious_, who used the pretext of religion to gain their particular ends; the _zealous_, or well-disposed, who only sought to practise their offices of piety in peace; the _judicious_, who tried to unite the interests of faith with those of policy; and lastly, the _timid_, who were ready to submit to everything rather than risk their ease or fortune. Those who dwelt in Paris and the provinces, where the Reformation was weak, habitually counselled measures of prudence, from the fear of being crushed; others, relying upon their power, spoke haughtily, and displayed the half-drawn sword. The distinction between the Reformers of the north and those of the south, already sensibly perceived, was shown more strongly in what followed.

The convocations of the national synods were equally frequent, and their ecclesiastical bodies interfered more than they had hitherto done in political questions, among others, in the synod of Privas, of which the session opened on the 23rd May, 1612. The pastor Chamier was its president or moderator, and the pastor Pierre Dumoulin was named as his deputy. The members of the synod complained of the letters patent of abolition or of pardon, published by the king’s council in the preceding month of April.

“The churches of this kingdom,” said they, “declare that they have never required, asked, or endeavoured to obtain grace or pardon, and that none of their body are guilty of those imaginary crimes imputed to them; that they are all ready, individually and collectively, to answer for their actions, to publish them to the whole world, and to show them in open day, in the sight of every species of torture, more easy to bear than so shameful a blot of infamy, which would make them despicable and hateful to posterity, and rob them of the honour that has been ever attributed to them, of being good Frenchmen.... Moreover, they declared that they would not avail themselves, nor in any way use the said letters of amnesty and pardon; and that if there should be any persons who had accepted them, or consented to accept them, that they disavowed them.”

The same synod undertook the re-establishment of harmony among the Calvinist noblemen who had disagreed at Saumur; and there resulted a solemn act of reconciliation, which was signed on the 16th of August, by the marshals de Bouillon and de Lesdiguières, the dukes de Sully, de Rohan, de Soubise, the marquis de la Force, and Duplessis-Mornay.

Another matter, more directly religious, was agitated on different occasions in the provincial and national synods. The subject was the conduct of Jérémie Ferrier—who has been already named—in the beginning a vehement defender of the Reformed communion, but afterwards secretly won over and paid by the court. Ferrier possessed considerable learning, combined with a fertile mind and ready speech; but his orthodoxy and probity were suspected. He was accused of having enunciated antichristian propositions concerning the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and of having improperly administered the funds of the Academy of Nismes. He was severely reprimanded on this account, and thereupon threw himself into the arms of the (Roman) Catholics.

Ferrier was recompensed for his apostasy by the title of councillor of the court of judicature at Nismes, in 1613. The consistory excommunicated him, and the people, who thenceforward styled him “_the traitor Judas_,” desired to oppose his installation. His houses in town and country were gutted, and he himself was forced to retire for a while to Beaucaire.

The synod of Bas-Languedoc, upon the authority of the national synod of Privas, confirmed Ferrier’s excommunication in the most solemn terms: “We, pastors and elders, declare that the said M. Jérémie Ferrier is a scandalous, incorrigible, impenitent, and unruly man; and as such, after having invoked the name of the living and true God, and in the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the direction of the Holy Ghost, and the authority of the Church, we have cast, and do cast him forth from the society of the faithful.”

Ferrier obtained, through the favour of the Jesuits, the post of councillor of state, and became the apologist of Cardinal de Richelieu. He died in 1626, detested by the Calvinists and little esteemed by the (Roman) Catholics. His daughter, who married the criminal-lieutenant Pardieu, figures in the satires of Boileau, for her sordid avarice: she was murdered by robbers in 1664.

III.

The situation of the Reformers grew worse, in spite of the reiterated declarations of the council respecting the faithful execution of the edicts. Their rights were continually disregarded in the courts of justice, in the nominations to public offices, hospitals, the dole of alms, places of worship, everywhere and wherever it was possible to vex and harass them without too openly violating the laws.

In the States-General, assembled in 1614, the orator of the _Tiers-parti_ spoke in favour of toleration. But the clergy and even the nobility gave the meeting to understand that, sooner or later, the king would fulfil the oath of his coronation, by which he had promised to expel all heretics denounced by the Church from the countries of his jurisdiction. Cardinal Duperron declared that the edicts were only provisional or suspensive, and that all that had been granted was a simple reprieve to rebellious subjects.

It would be difficult in our time to conceive to what extent the demands of the clergy against heretics proceeded, on being preferred to the king, after they had deliberated upon them in their general assemblies. They embraced a prohibition to write against the sacraments of the Romish church and the authority of the pope; prohibition to keep schools in the cities, and even in the suburbs of episcopal towns; prohibition for the ministers to enter hospitals to console the sick of their communion; prohibition for foreigners to teach anything but (Roman) Catholicism; prohibition for the judges of chambers, equally divided by an equality of votes, to adopt the less rigorous sentence; lastly, a speedy interdiction of all exercise of the pretended Reformed religion. These demands were periodically renewed, with clauses increasingly harsh and oppressive, until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and afterwards down to 1787. It was not until the great voice of the nation raised itself in the Constituent Assembly, that that of the priests was finally silenced.

The project of a double marriage—between the young king with an infanta of Spain, and of the prince of the Asturias with a daughter of France—a project supported by the Holy See—redoubled the fears of the Huguenots. It was generally rumoured that one of the conditions of the alliance between the two courts, was the destruction of heresy, and the (Roman) Catholic preachers took this as the text of their sermons. “If the Jesuits,” wrote Duplessis-Mornay to the chancellor De Sillery, “preach without circumlocution, that the design of this double marriage with Spain is to be the extirpation of heresy, can any one be surprised that our churches should take alarm, and that the minutes of the assemblies should speak of it?”

The Prince de Condé, a bigoted (Roman) Catholic, as we have seen, tried to turn the disquietude of the Calvinist party to the advantage of his personal cause, by invoking the memory of his father and grandfather. He published a manifesto in 1615, in which he told the Reformers that the Edict of Nantes would be abolished, and that the king’s only object in collecting his troops was their extermination. These provocations carried away some gentlemen of the political assemblies of Grenoble and Nismes. The Duke de Rohan took the field on the side of Saintonge; but the body of the Calvinists, including Lesdiguières, Châtillon, Sully, and Mornay, did not rise. The last wrote on this occasion, that “a negotiation would be renewed, by means of which the prince would be contented; while their churches would remain behind, loaded with all the odium, and perhaps also with the war itself.” This is exactly what happened. Condé made his peace with the court, without any regard for the position or the interests of his allies.

A more serious event—the oppression of the Reformation in Béarn—occurred to furnish more weighty motives for the recommencement of the wars of religion.

The principality of Basse-Navarre and Béarn, annexed to France by Henry IV., was more closely re-united in 1617. Three-fourths of the population, some say nine-tenths, belonged to the Reformed communion. They were nevertheless ordered to reinstate the priests in all the ecclesiastical property which had been applied, since the year 1569, to the use of the churches, schools, hospitals, and poor.

The Jesuit Arnoux said that this property “_belonged to God, who was its owner_,” and that consequently no one had the power or the right to take it.

The States of Béarn, the nobility, the magistrates of the towns, the people, all protested energetically, but in vain. The king took the field at the head of an army, and the Béarnese not being able to oppose more than a short resistance, he entered the town of Pau on the 15th October, 1620. He remained there no longer than two days, “for there was no church there,” says an historian of the time, “where he might thank God, from whom he held this inheritance, and he therefore went to have the mass chanted before his soldiers, at Navarreins, where it had not been solemnized for fifty years previously. Bishops, abbots, and curates re-entered into possession of the property of the church, the Jesuits taking a goodly share.”

The course of the royal troops was marked with cruel violence. “Nothing was heard to escape from the mouth of the most moderate,” says Elie Benoît, “but threats of exemplary punishment; of hanging, decapitating, and abolishing the Reformed religion throughout the whole kingdom, which they called _accursed_; of banishing all who professed it, or of compelling them to wear some badge of infamy.” The soldiers shattered the doors of the churches, demolished the walls, tore the books and the tables where the commandments of God were written. They robbed and maltreated the peasants with their staves and their swords, who came to the market of Pau, adjudging them beforehand to be all Huguenots. They forced the Reformers, who fell into their hands, to make the sign of the cross, and to kneel when the procession [of the host] passed by. The women dared not venture into the streets.... Some, who were with child, they compelled to swear to baptize their infants at the Romish church. “Children were carried off, the parents knew not whither, or how to recover them; and all this was done under the eyes of the king, who refused even to listen to the complaints of the injured. In the other parts of the country, the soldiers lived as they pleased; publicly told that the king had given the Huguenots up to them for pillage, they expelled the ministers, outraged their wives, and drove men and women to mass with blows and with curses.”[75]

Such was the first essay of the _dragonnades_, which system was before long to be perfected and extended under the reign of Louis XIV.

The indignation of the churches on the news of the persecutions in Béarn may be imagined. It was not this time the great lords of the party who cried for warlike measures. They saw too well that the Calvinists, doubly weakened by their internal dissensions and their defections, would not be able to make head against the king.

Some pastors also advised the Reformers to remain quiet. Pierre Dumoulin, who exercised great authority among the Consistorialists, wrote, after the national synod of Alais, of which he had been the moderator, that all ought to endure with patience the renewed strokes of the enemy. “If we must be persecuted,” said he, “all those who fear God desire that it should be for the profession of the Gospel, and that our persecution should truly be the cross of Christ.”

But the people of the Huguenots, seconded by the lesser nobility, and by the burghers of La Rochelle, would not hearken to this pacific counsel. Had not the king forsworn in Béarn the oaths he had taken at the assembly of Loudun? Was not the cause of the Béarnese the cause of all? Would not they be obliged to suffer likewise on the first occasion? Did not the advisers of Louis XIII. incite him to make an end of the Huguenots without delay? Was not their extermination preached from all the (Roman) Catholic pulpits? And was it not better to take counsel of their despair, than to wait in fatal security for their death-blow?

These sentiments were dominant in the political assembly convoked at La Rochelle in the month of December, 1620. The king had sent an usher to prohibit the deputies of the churches from meeting, and the inhabitants of La Rochelle from receiving them. When the usher had performed his mission, the magistrates of the town replied to him: “Since you have executed your orders, you will quit this place as soon as possible.”

The noblemen of the party still essayed to act as mediators between the court and the assembly. The dukes de Rohan, de Soubise, and de la Trémouille, had an interview at Niort with some of the deputies. Duplessis-Mornay exerted in these negotiations all the power and influence he possessed. But the difficulties appeared insurmountable. The king’s council ordered the assembly to dissolve immediately, and the assembly would not separate until they had obtained the redress of their grievances, and solid guarantees for the free exercise of their religion. On one side it was said: “Return home, and you shall have satisfaction.” On the other it was replied: “Give us satisfaction, and we will return home.” Mornay, in speaking of the assembly of Loudun, had well stated this twofold position: “The king orders them to dissolve, and promises to act; we beseech him to act, being ready to dissolve.”

The debate had no result, because on either side there were after-thoughts. The council wished at least to destroy the political organization of the Reformers, and the latter maintained it with obstinate constancy, under the full persuasion, not without reason, that on such political organization their religious liberty depended.

The assembly of La Rochelle, tired of transmitting to the court justifications and useless petitions, passed, at length, on the 10th of May, 1621, by a majority of six or seven votes, a resolution, bold even to rashness, and which breathed the republican spirit of the people of La Rochelle. The measure went far beyond the rights granted by the Edict of Nantes, and however bad were the designs of the council, it cannot be approved of.

France, with regard to the Reformers, was divided into eight departments or _circles_, an expression borrowed from the political establishment of Germany; and each circle was to be placed under the government of one of the leaders of the party. The supreme authority was confided to the Duke de Bouillon. The governors might levy money, appoint to offices, organize armies, and give battle. Three deputies of the assembly were to assist in the councils held by the general-in-chief and the military commanders. Lastly, the assembly reserved to themselves the power of concluding treaties of peace.

This organization, however, had more of appearance than reality. The Duke de Bouillon remained neutral. The Marshal de Lesdiguières was on the point of embracing (Roman) Catholicism. The Duke de la Trémouille, and the Marquis de Châtillon, grandson of Coligny, were wavering, and soon about to exchange the command of the Huguenots for the bâtons of marshals. The Marquis de la Force dreaded an open rupture with the court. The Duke de Sully was anxious for quiet. Mornay refused to take part in this recourse to arms. There were among all the leaders but the Duke de Rohan, and his brother, the Duke de Soubise, who showed themselves disposed to throw their whole fortunes into the new wars of religion.

Nor did the provinces that had been divided into circles, reply with a unanimous voice to the appeal of the assembly Picardy, Normandy, the Orleanais, the Isle of France, where the number of Reformers was small, even Poitou and Dauphiny, where they were more numerous, refused to take up arms. All the efforts of resistance were concentrated in Saintonge, Guienne, Quercy, and the two provinces of Languedoc.

The regulations adopted by the assembly of La Rochelle, for the maintenance of religion and good order in the army, are deserving of mention, as an interesting trait of manners. Pastors were to say prayers and preach daily to the soldiery. The troops were forbidden to swear, under pain of a fine proportioned to the rank of the delinquent; a _teston_ for a private, a _crown_ for an officer. Heavier penalties awaited any who brought women into the military encampments. The protection of agriculture and commerce was enjoined. Prisoners were placed under the safeguard of the council. These regulations proved that the assembly of La Rochelle were anxious to honour this new war; but their execution required a fervent piety, that had already become rare at that time.

IV.

Louis XIII. had commenced hostilities, by advancing his army towards the Loire on the 24th of April, fifteen days before the adoption of the resolution at La Rochelle. Some, the sagest members of his council, had persisted in proposing means of accommodation. They represented that the Huguenots held two hundred fortified places, that their soldiers were of approved bravery, that despair made them still more redoubtable, that there were in the churches four hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms, and that the Calvinists had for sixty years lost more by peace than by war. Others counselled, on the contrary, that a great and decisive blow should be struck against the Calvinist party, and Louis XIII. adopted the last opinion.

The Jesuits, his early masters and spiritual directors, urged him unceasingly to undertake the destruction of the churches, and invented arguments to make him safely violate the word he had given to the heretics. “The promises of the king,” said his confessor Arnoux, “are either promises of conscience or of state. Those made to the Huguenots are not of conscience, for they are against the precepts of the Church, and if they are of state, they should be referred to the privy council, whose advice is, not to keep them.” Thus reasoned the contemporary and brother of Escobar.

The pope offered two hundred thousand crowns, on condition that the Huguenots were brought back willingly, or by force, into the Church of Rome. He also addressed a brief to Louis XIII., wherein he praised him for having imitated his ancestors, who had “_honoured the exhortations of the pope as much as the commandments of God_.” The cardinals offered, on the same condition, two hundred thousand crowns, and the priests a million.

In the harangues pronounced by the orator of the clergy, the king was pressed to follow the example of Philip Augustus, the grandfather of Saint Louis, who had utterly exterminated the Albigenses, or at least the example of the Emperor Constantius, who had forced the idolaters to quit the towns and to dwell in the villages, whence they had derived, said this priest, the name of Pagans.

The emissaries of Spain, with which country the double marriage had led to a strict alliance, were urgent for war, from reasons of a different kind. Every time France was troubled, the court of Madrid felt stronger, and its language assumed a higher tone.

The king therefore put himself at the head of his army, with the Constable de Luynes, the Duke de Lesdiguières, who had openly declared for the court, the Cardinal de Guise, a crowd of lords, and his mother, Marie de Medicis, whom he distrusted. His council had taken the precaution to distinguish, before the commencement of the campaign, between the _peaceable_ Calvinists and those who were not so—a distinction which gave the timid and the venal the opportunity of keeping at home, without being accused of treason.

One of the first exploits of Louis XIII. was the capture of the town and castle of Saumur, by deceit and treachery. Duplessis-Mornay had been governor of the place from the reign of Henry III. He kept it as a town of hostage, granted by the edicts; and as it commanded the course of the Loire, it was of great importance to the Calvinist party. The Constable de Luynes demanded ingress in the name of the king, promising that the immunities of Saumur should be as safe as the eye of the governor, and to this “_he pledged his word, as well as that of his majesty, with his own mouth, which was also confirmed by M. de Lesdiguières_.” Mornay opened the gates of the fortress, and led out, according to custom, the Calvinist garrison. But as soon as the king had entered with his troops, he declared that he took definite possession of Saumur.

To give to this breach of faith the appearance of an amicable arrangement, Mornay was offered, beside payment of the arrears of his appointment, one hundred thousand crowns and a marshal’s bâton. He retorted with indignation, that if he had loved money, he might have gained millions under the preceding reigns, and that, as for dignities, he had always been more desirous of rendering himself worthy of them, than of obtaining them. “I cannot, either in conscience or honour,” he added, “traffic in the liberty or safety of others.”

He went to dwell in his house, where he died on the 11th of November, 1623. His last hours were full of serenity. “We saw clearly the Gospel of the Son of God engraved on his heart by the Holy Ghost,” said the almoner of his family, Jean Daillé; “we saw him in the midst of death firmly possessed of life, and enjoying a full contentment at a moment when all men are usually shaken with fear. And this lesson was so striking and efficacious, that even those who suffered most from his loss, reaped both joy and edification.” He made his confession of faith, avowing that he had received much, and had little profited. And when he was told that he had faithfully employed his talent: “Ah! what is there of mine?” he exclaimed. “Do not say I, but God through me.”

Philippe de Mornay was the last representative of that great and strong generation, which had received the lessons of Calvin, and the examples of Coligny. He had shown that it is possible to preserve, during half a century, even in those worst of all wars, the wars of religion, a spotless name, an irreproachable character, conduct always even, and a humane and generous nature. This is the highest glory to which man can attain.

Beyond Saumur, the royal army encountered no serious resistance until it arrived before the gates of Saint Jean d’Angély, commanded by the Duke de Soubise. The siege began on the 30th of May, 1621, and lasted twenty-six days. Among the number of volunteers was the Cardinal de Guise, who acquitted himself in the soldier’s calling better than he had done in that of the priest. He embarked in it with so much ardour that he died of fatigue, a few days after, in the town of Saintes.

The king thence betook himself to Basse-Guienne, all the towns hastening to throw open their gates to him, except the little place of Clairac, which styled itself “_a town without a king, defended by soldiers without fear_.” It was taken after twelve days’ siege. A pastor named La Fargue, together with his father and son-in-law, was condemned to death.