Chapter VIII (1)

HENRY THE SECOND, AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCHES.

[Sidenote: Death of Francis I.]

[Sidenote: Impartial estimates of his character.]

On the thirty-first of March, 1547, Francis the First died, leaving the throne to his only surviving son. With whatever assiduity the poets and scholars of whom the late king had been a munificent patron, and the courtiers who had basked in the sunshine of his favor, might apply themselves to the celebration of his resplendent merits, posterity, less blind to his faults, has declined to confirm the title of "great" affixed to his name by contemporaries. The candid historian, undazzled by the glitter of his chivalric enterprises, may condemn the animus, but can scarcely deny the substantial truth of the bitter reproaches in which the Emperor Charles the Fifth indulged, respecting the uniform faithlessness of his ancient rival.[516] Much less can he pardon the cruel persecution which Francis allowed to be exercised against an unoffending part of his subjects, less from zeal for the tenets of the church whose cause he espoused than from a selfish fear lest his prerogative might be impaired.

[Sidenote: His three sons.]

[Sidenote: Henry, Duke of Orleans.]

[Sidenote: Character of the new king.]

Of the three sons of Francis, the dauphin and his youngest brother, the Duke of Angouleme, had been snatched away by death during the lifetime of their father.[517] The Duke of Orleans, who now ascended the throne as Henry the Second, was not a favorite son.[518] More than once he had incurred his father's grave displeasure by insubordination. A mad frolic, in which the young prince undertook in sport to distribute the high offices of state, as if his father were already dead, and disclosed his intention to recall to power the monarch's disgraced courtiers, occasioned a serious breach. More important consequences might have flowed from the unfortunate incident, had not the youth and the giddy companions of his revel sought safety in temporary exile from court.[519] From his father Henry inherited great bodily vigor, and remarkable skill in all games of strength and agility. His frame, naturally well proportioned, was finely developed by exercise.[520] He was accounted the fleetest runner, and the most graceful rider in France. He rarely suffered a day to pass without playing ball, not unfrequently after having hunted down a stag or two. In the more dangerous pastimes of mock combat and jousting he delighted to engage, to the no small alarm of all spectators.[521] Unfortunately, however, the intellectual and moral development of the young prince had by no means kept pace with the growth of his physical powers. The sluggishness of his dull and unready comprehension had, at an earlier date, been noticed by the Venetian Marino Cavalli, while, with a courtier's flattery, he likened him to those autumnal fruits that are more tardy in ripening, but are of better quality and last longer than the fruits of summer.[522] Although he had reached the age of twenty-eight years on the very day of his accession, he was still a child in all that respected the serious concerns of life and the duties of his elevated position. Averse to that careful deliberation which the public affairs demanded, and willing to be led by those who would _think_ for him, it immediately became evident that he was destined to be the mere image of a king, while the powers of royalty were to be enjoyed by his trusted advisers and by those who could minister to his immoderate love of pleasure. The issue abundantly proved the truth of the assertion that his reign ought rather to be called the reign of Diana of Poitiers, of Montmorency, and of the Cardinal of Lorraine; of whom the last, it was said, had the king's conscience in his sleeve, and the first his body, as by some species of sorcery.[523]

[Sidenote: Wotton's view of the French court.]

Scarcely had Francis breathed his last when shrewd observers of the current of political influence were able to make up their minds pretty fully upon the favorites that were to rule under Henry's name. "The French king, straight after his father's death," wrote Dr. Wotton, "hath revoked the _Constable_ to the court again; who is now in as great triumph (as men say) as ever he was, if it be not more.... Of the younger sort of those that are at the court already, these seem to be the chief favorites: _Andelot_, younger brother to Chatillon, and his brother, the _Cardinal of Chatillon_; the Duke of Guise's sons, in a manner all, but especially these: _Monsieur d'Aumale_ [Francis, later Duke of Guise], the _Bishop of Rheims_ [Cardinal Charles of Lorraine], and the _Bishop of Troyes_, who, as I hear say, are all three of the council. Monsieur d'Aumale is in very great favour ... but in greatest estimation and favour of all, as it appeareth hitherto, either of them of the older sort or of the younger sort, seemeth to be the said Bishop of Rheims, who had the chief ordering of the king's house, he being Dolphin; whom I could wish to be of as good judgment in matters of religion as I take the Cardinal du Bellay to be, but I hear he is not so, but _very earnest in upholding the Romish blindness_.... Of the dames, Madame la Grande Senechale seemeth to be highly esteemed."[524]

To gain a clear view of the various influences--at one time neutralizing each other, and thus tending to the protection of the reformed doctrines and their professors, but much more frequently acting in concert, and tending to the suppression of those doctrines--it is necessary that we examine in some detail the position of Diana, of the Constable, and of the Guises.

[Sidenote: Diana of Poitiers.]

[Sidenote: The king's infatuation.]

Diana of Poitiers, daughter of Monsieur de St. Vallier, and widow of De Breze, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, had in her youth been celebrated for her beauty, by which she had first captivated Francis the First, and afterward made Henry forget the claims of his Florentine bride upon his affections. But she was now a matron of forty-seven years of age, and the public wondered as they saw the undiminished devotion of the new monarch to a woman nearly a score of years older than himself. It is true that the courtier's pen of Brantome ascribes to her all the freshness of youth even at the close of the reign of Henry the Second. His eulogium, however, is scarcely more worthy of credit than Homer's praise of the undiminished personal beauty of Helen, when, twenty years subsequently to the departure of the expedition to Troy, the Ithacan prince found her reigning again at Sparta. But of the influence which Diana possessed over Henry there could be no doubt. By the vulgar it was attributed to the use of charms and love-potions. The infatuation of the monarch knew no bounds. He loaded her with gifts; he entrusted her with the crown jewels;[525] he conferred upon her the dignity of a duchess of Valentinois. In her apartments he spent hours daily, in company with his most intimate courtiers. Through love for her he adopted her favorite colors, and took for his device the crescent, with the words, "Totum donec compleat orbem." The public edifices of his time, it is said, still bear testimony to this dishonorable attachment, in the initials or emblems of Henry and Diana sculptured together upon their facades; and the Venetian Soranzo, at a later period in Henry's reign, magnifying her influence upon every department of the administration, affirms, in particular, that the dispensation of ecclesiastical offices was in her hands.[526] It is not surprising that, being of an avaricious character, she soon accumulated great wealth.

[Sidenote: Constable Anne de Montmorency.]

[Sidenote: His cruelty.]

Anne de Montmorency, one of the four marshals of France, grand-master of the palace, and constable, was among the most notable personages of the sixteenth century. Sprung from a family claiming descent from the first Frank that followed the example of Clovis in renouncing paganism, and bearing on its escutcheon the motto, "God defend the first Christian," he likewise arrogated the foremost rank in the nobility as the first baron of the kingdom. From his youth he was accustomed to association with royalty. Margaret of Navarre was his early friend, and at a later period had occasion to complain of his ingratitude. He was at this time fifty-five years of age, severe, stern, fond of arms, complaisant to royalty, but harsh and overbearing in his relations with inferiors. Of his personal valor there can be no doubt, and he was generally regarded as the ablest general in France--an opinion, it is true, which his subsequent ill-success contributed much to shake.[527] But his martial glory was dimmed by his well-known avarice, his ignorance,[528] and a cruelty that often approached ferocity. Of this last trait a signal instance was afforded when Montmorency was sent, in the year after Henry's accession, to suppress a formidable revolt which had broken out in Guyenne, in consequence of a considerable increase of the already burdensome impost upon salt. He haughtily refused to accept the keys of the city of Bordeaux tendered to him by the citizens on his approach. His artillery, he said, would serve him as well in gaining admission. The severity of the retribution meted out under his superintendence to those who had ventured to resist the royal authority was unparalleled in French history.[529] If the constable's ferocity did not diminish with age, it acquired a tinge of the ludicrous from his growing superstition. Never would he omit his devotions at the appointed hour, whether at home or in the field--"so conscientious was he." But he would interrupt the recital of his _pater-nosters_ with such orders as the emergency might demand, or his inclination prompt: "Seize such a man! Hang that one to a tree! Run that fellow through at once with your pikes, or shoot him down before my eyes! Cut the knaves to pieces that have undertaken to hold that belfry against the king! Burn that village! Fire everything to the distance of a quarter of a league!" So terrible a reputation did his devotions consequently acquire, that it was a current saying: "Beware of the constable's pater-nosters!"[530]

[Sidenote: His unpopularity.]

In fact, Anne de Montmorency was ill-fitted to win popularity. A despatch of Sir John Mason, three years later, gives a glimpse of his relations with his fellow-courtiers. "There is a little _square_," he writes, "between the Duchess of Valentinois, who ruleth the roast, and the constable. A great many of the court _wisheth the increase thereof. He is very ill-beloved_, for that he is a hinderer of all men saving his own kinsfolks, whom he doth so advance as no man may have anything by his will but they, and for that also he feedeth every man with fair words, and performeth nothing."[531]

[Sidenote: Recalled from disgrace by Henry II.]

For six years before the death of Francis the First the constable had been living in retirement upon his estates. The occasion of his banishment from court is stated, by one who enjoyed the best opportunities for learning the truth, to have been the advice which he had given the monarch to permit the Emperor Charles the Fifth to pass through his dominions when going to Netherlands to suppress the revolt of the burghers of Ghent.[532] Francis, indeed, is said on his deathbed to have warned his son against the dangers with which the ambition of the constable and of the family of Guise threatened his kingdom. But, as we have seen, Henry had no sooner received tidings of his father's death, than he at once summoned Montmorency to court, and resigned to him undisputed control of the affairs of state. The Venetian Dandolo, sent to congratulate the monarch upon his advent to the throne, felicitated the favorite on his merited resumption of his former rank and the honor of the "_universal charge_" which he held.[533] He was now all-powerful. The Duchess d'Etampes, mistress of the late king, to whose influence his disgrace was in part owing, for this and other offences was exiled from court and sent to the castle of her husband.[534] Admiral Annebaut and the Cardinal of Tournon were removed from the head of the administration. The former, of whose sterling worth Francis entertained so high an appreciation that he had bequeathed to him the sum of 100,000 livres, was compelled to resign his place as Marshal of France in favor of a new favorite--Jacques d'Albon de St. Andre, of whom more particular mention must be made presently.[535]

[Sidenote: The family of Guise.]

[Sidenote: Duke Claude.]

[Sidenote: The first Cardinal of Lorraine.]

Francis is reported to have included the family of Guise with Constable Montmorency in the warning addressed to his son, and the story, received by the people as an undoubted truth, circulated in a poetical form for many years.[536] The Guises were of foreign extraction, and had but recently become residents of France. Claude, the fifth son of the Duke of Lorraine, at that time an independent state, came to the French court, in the early part of the sixteenth century, in quest of opportunities to advance his fortunes greater than were open to a younger member of the reigning family in his father's contracted dominions. Partly through the influence of Montmorency, partly in consequence of his marriage with Antoinette of Bourbon, a princess of royal blood, in some degree also by his own abilities, the young foreigner was rapidly advanced, from the comparatively insignificant position at first assigned him, to more important trusts. At length he became royal lieutenant of the provinces of Champagne and Burgundy, and his small domain of Guise was erected into a duchy.[537] His younger brother John, who had entered the church as offering the most promising road to the attainment of his ambitious designs, had also come westward; and, proving to be a jovial companion whose presence imposed no restraint upon the license of a profligate court, he fared even better in securing ecclesiastical preferment than his brother in obtaining secular advantages.[538] In his favor Francis made use, in a manner lavish beyond precedent, of the right of nomination to benefices secured to the crown by the concordat. Even an age well accustomed to the abuse of the plurality of offices was amazed to see John of Lorraine at one and the same time Archbishop of Lyons, Rheims, and Narbonne, Bishop of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Therouenne, Lucon, Alby, and Valence, and Abbot of Gorze, Fecamp, Clugny, and Marmoutier.[539] To gratify the French monarch, Pope Leo the Tenth added to the dignity of the young ecclesiastic, by conferring upon him the Cardinal's hat a year or two before he had attained his majority.[540] Shrewd and plausible, the Cardinal of Lorraine, as he was henceforth called, contributed not a little to his brother's rapid advancement; and, as it was well understood that the rich benefices he held and the accumulation of his wealth would go, at his death, to enrich his nephews, he was treated with great deference by all the members of his brother's family.

[Sidenote: Marriage of James V. of Scotland to Mary of Lorraine.]

An important era in the history of the Guises is marked by the marriage effected, in 1538, between James the Fifth of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine, the eldest daughter of Claude. This royal alliance secured for the Guises a predominant influence in North British affairs after the death of James. It brought them into close connection with the crown of France, when Mary, Queen of Scots, the fruit of this union, was affianced to the son of Henry the Second, the dauphin, afterward Francis the Second. It encouraged the adherents of this house to attribute to it an almost regal dignity, and to intimate more and more plainly its claim upon the throne of France, as descended through the Dukes of Lorraine from Charlemagne--a title superior to that of the Valois, who could trace their origin to no higher source than the usurper Hugh Capet.

[Sidenote: The duke's sons.]

[Sidenote: Francis of Guise.]

[Sidenote: Charles, Cardinal of Guise, and afterward of Lorraine.]

But the second generation of the Guises was destined to exert, during the reign of Henry the Second, an influence more controlling than the brothers Claude and John had exerted during his father's reign. The six sons of Claude--all displaying the grasping disposition of the house from which they sprang, all aiming at the acquisition of position and wealth, each of them insatiable, yet never exhibiting a rivalry that might prove detrimental to their common expectations--throw into obscurity the surprising success of their father and uncle, by their own marvellous prosperity. Scarcely had a third part of Henry's reign gone by, before foreign ambassadors wrote home glowing accounts of the influence of the younger favorites. "The credit of the house of Guise in this court," said one, "passeth all others. For albeit the constable hath the outward administration of all things, being for that service such a man as hard it were to find the like, yet have they so much credit _as he with whom he is constrained to sail_, and many times to take that course that he liketh never a whit."[541] Francis, the eldest son, known until his father's death as the Count of Aumale, and afterward succeeding him as Duke of Guise, entered the inviting profession of arms. The second son, Charles, chose the life of an ecclesiastic, and soon assumed with respect to his brothers a commanding position similar to that which John had occupied. At an early age he had been elevated to the Archbishopric of Rheims, voluntarily ceded to him by his uncle. Henry, soon after his accession, obtained from the pontiff a place in the consistory for the young ecclesiastic, who then became known as the Cardinal of Guise, and, after his uncle's death, in 1550, as Cardinal of Lorraine. The four younger brothers respectively figured in subsequent years as the Duke of Aumale, the Cardinal of Guise, the Marquis of Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior of France.[542]

[Sidenote: Character of Francis.]

Francis of Guise, although but twenty-eight years of age, was already regarded as a brilliant general and an accomplished courtier. Vain and ostentatious, yet possessed of more real military ability than his unfortunate Italian campaign of 1556 would seem to indicate, he won laurels at Metz, at Calais, and at Thionville.[543] Outside of the pursuits of war he was grossly ignorant, and in all civil and religious matters he allowed himself to be governed by the advice of his brother Charles. Even the Protestants, whom he so deeply injured, would for the most part have acquiesced in the opinion of the cabinet minister, De l'Aubespine, that the Duke of Guise was a captain capable of rendering good service to his native land, had he not been hindered and infected by his brother's ambition. It is the same trustworthy authority who states that the duke was more than once induced to exclaim of his brother Charles: "That man in the end will ruin us."[544]

[Sidenote: Various estimates of the second Cardinal of Lorraine.]

The portraits of men who, for weal or woe, have exercised a powerful influence upon their times, are frequently painted so differently by their advocates and by their opponents, that for him who would obtain an impartial view of their merits or defects it will prove a difficult task to discover any means of removing the discrepancies in the representations and attaining the truth. Fortunate must he esteem himself if he chance to find some contemporary, less directly interested in the events and persons described, to furnish him with the results of unbiassed observation. In the conflict of the Protestant and Roman Catholic writers of France respecting Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, the "relations" of the Venetian ambassadors, devoted adherents of the Holy See, made to the doge and senate of their native state, and given under the seal of secrecy, must be esteemed a rich historical legacy. The cardinal's intellect, these envoys tell us, was wonderfully acute. He understood the point at which those who conversed with him were aiming when they had scarcely opened their mouth. His memory was more than usually retentive. He was well educated, and learned not only in Greek, Latin, and Italian, but in the sciences, and especially in theology. He had a rare gift of talking. In the fulfilment of his promises he was less famous. According to one ambassador, he had the reputation of rarely speaking the truth. Another styles him little truthful, and of a deceitful and avaricious disposition.[545] Both agree in representing him as covetous "beyond the avarice natural to the French, even employing dishonorable means to increase his wealth."[546] Both unite in extolling his administrative abilities. In observance of the precepts of the church he was exemplary. Yearly did he retire from court to spend the season of Lent on some one of his numerous possessions. In life, "so far as the outside is concerned," he observed the decorum appropriate to his rank, thus presenting a striking contrast to the other cardinals and prelates of the kingdom, who were "of a most licentious character." But he was vindictive, slow in rewarding services, and so violent that it was probable that no other event was so much desired in France as his death.[547] The scandalous stories related by Brantome, which have generally been understood to apply to Cardinal _Charles_ of Lorraine, really refer, as Ranke has observed,[548] to his uncle, the Cardinal _John_; but the abbe, who was certainly not unfriendly to the Guises, mingles praise and censure as equal ingredients in sketching the character of the former. If he was "very religious," after Brantome's idea of religion, he was also esteemed a "great hypocrite," with whom religion served as a stepping-stone to greatness. If he was a "holy" man, he was "not too conscientious." If gracious and affable at times, it was only when something had gone wrong with him; for in prosperity no one was more overbearing.[549]

Such, according to writers of his own religion, was the churchman of whom, with Diana of Poitiers, the cabinet minister who knew both well wrote: "It were to be desired that this woman and the cardinal had never been born; for they two alone have been the spark that kindled our misfortunes."[550] Pasquin well reflected the sentiments of the people when he altered the motto that accompanied the device of the cardinal--an ivy-clad pyramid--from "Te stante, virebo" to "Te virente, peribo."[551]

[Sidenote: Rapacity of the new favorites.]

[Sidenote: Marshal Saint-Andre.]

[Sidenote: Servility toward Diana of Poitiers.]

With a weak-minded prince, averse to anything except the gratification of his passions, and under the influence of such counsellors, France became almost of necessity a scene of rapacity beyond all precedent. The princes of the blood continued in their exclusion from official positions. Each of the new favorites was not only eager to obtain wealth for himself, but had a number of relations for whom provision must also be made. To the more prominent courtiers above enumerated was added Jacques d'Albon de Saint-Andre, son of Henry's tutor, who, from accidental intimacy with the king in childhood, was led to aspire to high dignities in the state, and was not long in obtaining a marshal's baton.[552] Herself securing not only the rank of Duchess of Valentinois, with the authority of a queen,[553] but the enormous revenues derived from the customary confirmation of offices at the beginning of a new reign, Diana permitted the constable, the Guises, and Saint-Andre to partake to a less degree in the spoils of the kingdom. A contemporary writer likens the brood of courtiers she gathered about her to swallows in pursuit of flies on a summer's evening. Nothing escaped them--rank, dignity, bishopric, abbey, office, or other dainty morsel--all alike were eagerly devoured. Spies and salaried agents were posted in all parts of the kingdom to convey the earliest intelligence of the death of those who possessed any valuable benefices. Physicians in their employ at Paris sent in frequent bulletins of the health of sick men who enjoyed offices in church or state; nor were instances wanting in which, for the present of a thousand crowns, they were said to have hastened a wealthy patient's death. Even the king was unable to give as he wished, and sought to escape the importunity of his favorites by falsely assuring them that he had already made promises to others. Thus only could they be kept at bay.[554] The Guises and Montmorency, to render their power more secure, courted the favor of the king's mistress. The Cardinal of Lorraine, in particular, distinguished himself by the servility which he displayed. For two years he put himself to infinite trouble to be at the table of Diana.[555] After her elevation to the peerage, he addressed to her a letter, still extant, in which he assured her that henceforth his interest and hers were inseparable.[556] To give yet greater firmness to the bond uniting them, the Guises brought about a marriage between their third brother, the Duke of Aumale, and one of the daughters of the Duchess of Valentinois; while the Constable of Montmorency, at a later time, undertook to gain a similar advantage for his own family by causing his son to wed Diana, a natural daughter of the king.

[Sidenote: Persecution to atone for moral blemishes.]

It may at first sight appear somewhat incongruous that a king and court thus given up, the former to flagrant immorality, the latter to the unbridled pursuit of riches and honors, should early have exhibited a disposition to carry forward in an aggravated form the system of persecution initiated in the previous reign. The secret of the apparent inconsistency may be found in the fact that the courtiers were not slow in perceiving, on the one hand, the almost incalculable gains which the confiscation of the goods of condemned heretics might be made to yield, and, on the other, the facility with which a monarch of a disposition naturally gentle and humane[557] could be persuaded to countenance the most barbarous cruelties, as the supposed means of atoning for the dissoluteness of his own life. The observance of the strict precepts of the moral law, they argued, was of less importance than the purity of the faith. The title of "Very Christian" had been borne by some of his predecessors whose private lives had been full of gallantries. His claim to it would be forfeited by the adoption of the stern principles of the reformers; while the Pontiff who conferred it would never venture to remove the honorable distinction, or refuse to unlock the gates of paradise to him who should prove himself an obedient son of the church and a persecutor of its enemies. To fulfil these conditions was the easier, as the persons upon whom were to be exercised the severities dictated by heaven, plotted revolutions and aspired to convert France into a republic, on the pattern of the cantons of Switzerland. Lending a willing ear to these suggestions, Henry the Second no sooner began to reign than he began to persecute.[558]

[Sidenote: The "Chambre ardente."]

[Sidenote: Edict of Fontainebleau against books from Geneva.]

[Sidenote: Deceptive title-pages.]

Toward the close of the reign of Francis, the prisons of Normandy had become so full of persons incarcerated for religion's sake, that a separate and special chamber had been instituted in the Parliament of Rouen, to give exclusive attention to the trial of such cases.[559] One of Henry's first acts was to establish a similar chamber in the Parliament of Paris.[560] Judges selected with such a commission were not likely to incline to the side of mercy; and the chamber speedily earned for itself, by the numbers of victims it sent to the flames, the significant popular name of "_la Chambre ardente_."[561] The rapid propagation of the reformed doctrines by the press gave occasion to the publication of a new edict. The printing of any book containing matters pertaining to the Holy Scriptures was strictly forbidden. Equally prohibited was the sale of books brought from Geneva, Germany, or other foreign parts, without the approval of the Theological Faculty of Paris. All annotated copies of the Bible must contain the name of the author, and the publisher's name and address. Persons of all ranks were warned against retaining in their possession any condemned work.[562] But these restrictions had little effect in repressing the spread of the Reformation. If a severe blow was struck at the publishing trade in France, the dissemination of books printed abroad, and, frequently, with spurious title-pages,[563] was largely increased. It now assumed, however, a more stealthy and cautious character.

[Sidenote: Execution of Brugiere.]

[Sidenote: The tailor of the Rue St. Antoine.]

Blood flowed in every part of the kingdom. Not only the capital, but also the provinces furnished their constant witnesses to the truth of the "Lutheran" doctrines. The noted trial and execution of John Brugiere revealed to the First President of Parliament the humiliating fact that the Reformation had gained a strong foothold in his native Auvergne.[564] At Paris, one Florence Venot was confined seven weeks in a cell upon the construction of which so much perverted ingenuity had been expended that the prisoner could neither lie down nor stand erect, and the hour of release from weary torture was waited for with ardent longing, even if it led to the stake.[565] But the death of a nameless tailor has, by the singularity of its incidents, acquired a celebrity surpassing that of any other martyrdom in the early part of this reign. In the midst of the tourneys and other festivities provided to signalize the occasion of the queen's coronation and his own solemn entry into Paris, the desire seized Henry to see with his own eyes and to interrogate one of the members of the sect to whose account such serious charges were laid. A poor tailor, arrested in his shop in the Rue St. Antoine, a few paces from the royal palace, for the crime of working on a day which the church had declared holy, was brought before him. So contemptible a dialectician could do little, it was presumed, to shake the faith of the Very Christian King. But the result disappointed the expectations of the courtiers and ecclesiastics that were present. The tailor answered with respectful boldness to the questions propounded by Chatellain, Bishop of Macon, a prelate once favorable to the Reformation. Hereupon Diana of Poitiers, an interested opponent, whose coffers were being filled with the goods of condemned heretics, undertook to silence him with the tongue of a witty woman. The tailor, who had patiently borne the ridicule and scorn with which he had hitherto been treated, turned upon the mistress of the king a look of solemn warning as he said: "Madam, let it suffice you to have infected France, without desiring to mingle your poison and filth with so holy and sacred a thing as the true religion of our Lord Jesus Christ." The courtiers were thunderstruck at the turn taken by a discussion to which they had flocked as to a scene of diversion, and the enraged king ordered the tailor's instant trial and punishment. He even desired with his own eyes to see him undergo the extreme penalty of the law. A solemn procession had been ordered to proceed from St. Paul's to Notre Dame. The prayers there offered for the destruction of heresy were followed by an "exemplary demonstration" of the king's pious disposition, in the execution of four "Lutherans" in as many different squares of the city.[566] In order the better to see the punishment inflicted upon the tailor of the Rue St. Antoine, Henry posted himself at a window that commanded the entire spectacle. But it was no coward's death that he beheld. Soon perceiving and recognizing the monarch before whom he had witnessed so good a profession, the tailor fixed his gaze upon him, nor would he avert his face, however much the king ordered that his position should be changed. Even in the midst of the flames he still continued to direct his dying glance toward the king, until the latter, abashed, was compelled to withdraw from the window. For days Henry declared that the spectre haunted his waking hours and drove sleep from his eyes at night; and he affirmed with an oath that never again would he witness so horrible a scene.[567] Happy would it have been for his memory had he adhered, in the case of Anne du Bourg, to so wise a resolution!

[Sidenote: Other victims of intolerance.]

The ashes of one martyr were scarcely cold before new fires were kindled--now before the cathedral, now before some parish church, again in the crowded market or in the distant provincial town. At one time it was a widow that welcomed the rope that bound her, as the zone given her by a heavenly bridegroom in token of her approaching nuptials. A few years later, it was a nobleman who, when in view of his rank the sentence of the judges would have spared him the indignity of the halter which was placed around the neck of his companions, begged the executioner to make no exception in his case, saying: "Deny me not the collar of so excellent an order."[568]

[Sidenote: Severe edicts and quarrels with Rome.]

[Sidenote: Edict of Chateaubriand, June 27, 1551.]

[Sidenote: War upon the books from Geneva.]

The failure, however, of these fearful exhibitions to strike terror into the minds of the persecuted, or accomplish the end for which they were undertaken, is proved by their frequent recurrence, and not less by the new series of sanguinary laws running through the reign of Henry. An edict from Paris, on the nineteenth of November, 1549, endeavored to remove all excuse for remissness on the part of the prelates, by conferring on the ecclesiastical judges the unheard-of privilege of arresting for the crime of heresy, the exclusive right of passing judgment upon simple heresy, and conjoint jurisdiction with the civil courts in cases in which public scandal, riot, or sedition might be involved.[569] Less than two years later, when Henry, uniting with Maurice of Saxony and Albert of Brandenburg, received the title of Defender of the Empire against Charles the Fifth, and was on the point of making war on Pope Julius the Third, he issued an edict forbidding his subjects, under severe penalties, from carrying gold or silver to Rome.[570] But, to convince the world of his orthodoxy, he chose the same time for the publication of a new and more truculent measure, known as the _Edict of Chateaubriand_ (on the twenty-seventh of June, 1551), directed against the reformed.[571] This notable law reiterated the old complaint of the ill-success of previous efforts, and the statement of the impossibility of attaining the desired end save by diligent care and rigorous procedure. Its most striking peculiarity was that it committed the trial of heretics to the newly appointed "presidial" judges, whose sentence, when ten counsellors had been associated with them, was to be final.[572] Thus was it contemplated to put an end to the vexatious delays by means of which the trial of many a reputed "Lutheran" had been protracted and not a few of the hated sect had in the end escaped. But the large number of additional articles exhibit in a singular manner the extent to which the doctrines of the Reformation had spread, the means of their diffusion, and the method by which it was hoped that they might be eradicated. Prominent among the provisions appear those that relate to the products of the press. Evidently the Cardinal of Lorraine and the other advisers of the king were of the same mind with the great advocate of unlicensed printing, when he said: "Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.... I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men."[573] The edict utterly prohibited the introduction of any books from Geneva and other places notoriously rebellious to the Holy See, the retention of condemned books by booksellers, and all clandestine printing. It instituted a semi-annual visitation of every typographical establishment, a clerical examination of all packages from abroad, a special inspection thrice a year at the great fairs of Lyons, through which many suspected books found their way into the kingdom. The "porte-panier," or pedler, was forbidden to sell books at all, because many pedlers brought in books from Geneva under pretext of selling other merchandise. The bearers of letters from Geneva were to be arrested and punished. The goods and chattels of those who had fled to Geneva were to be confiscated. Informers were promised one-third of the property of the condemned. And lest the tongue should contaminate those whom the printed volume might not reach, all unlettered persons were warned not even to _discuss_ matters of faith, the sacraments, and the polity of the church, whether at the table, in the field, or in secret conventicle.[574]

[Sidenote: The book-pedlers of Switzerland, etc.]

It is clear that the "dragon's teeth" were beginning to spring up warriors full armed; but the sowing still went on. From Geneva, from Neufchatel, from Strasbourg, and from other points, devoted men of ardent piety, and often of no little cultivation, entered France and cautiously sold or distributed the contents of the packs they carried. Often they penetrated far into the country. To such as were detected the penalty of the law was inexorably meted out. A pedler, after every bone of his body had been dislocated in the vain attempt to compel him to betray the names of those to whom he had sold his books, was burned at Paris in the midst of the applauding shouts of a great crowd of persons, who would have torn him to pieces had they been allowed.[575] The printers of French Switzerland willingly entrusted their publications to these faithful men, not without danger of the loss of their goods; and it was almost incredible how many men offered themselves to the extreme perils which threatened them.[576] The Edict of Chateaubriand, intended to destroy the rising intellectual and moral influence of Geneva, it must be noticed, had the opposite effect; for nothing had up to this time so tended to collect the scattered Protestants of France in a city where, free from the temptation to conformity with the dominant religion, they received a training adapted to qualify them for usefulness in their native land.[577]

[Sidenote: Marshal Vieilleville refuses to profit by confiscation.]

Yet the publication of the Edict of Chateaubriand was the signal for the renewal of the severity of the persecution. Every day, says the historian De Thou, persons were burned at Paris on account of religion. Cardinal Tournon and Diana of Poitiers, he tells us, shared in the opprobrium of being the instigators of these atrocities. With the latter it was less fanaticism than a desire to augment the proceeds of the confiscation of the property of condemned heretics which she had lately secured for herself, and was employing to make up the ransom of her two sons-in-law, now prisoners of war.[578] Very few of the courtiers of Henry's court had a spark of the magnanimity that fired the breast of the Marshal de Vieilleville. The name of this nobleman had, unknown to him, been inserted in a royal patent giving to him and others, who desired to shield themselves behind his honorable name, the confiscated goods of all condemned usurers and Lutherans in Guyenne and five other provinces of Southern France. When the document was placed in his hands, and he was assured that it would yield to each of the six patentees twenty thousand crowns within four months, the marshal exclaimed: "And here we stand registered in the courts of parliament as devourers of the people!... Besides that, for twenty thousand crowns to incur individually the curses of a countless number of women and children that will die in the poor-house in consequence of the forfeiture of the lives and property of their husbands and fathers, by fair means or foul--this would be to plunge ourselves into perdition at too cheap a rate!" So saying, Vieilleville drove his dagger through his own name in the patent, and others, through shame, following his example, the document was torn to pieces.[579]

[Sidenote: The "Five Scholars of Lausanne."]

Of the considerable number of those upon whom the "very rigorous procedures" laid down by the Edict of Chateaubriand were executed in almost all parts of France, according to the historian of the reformed churches,[580] the "_Five Scholars of Lausanne_" deserve particular mention. Natives of different points in France, these young men, with others, had enjoyed in the distinguished school instituted in the chief city of the Pays de Vaud, under the protection of the Bernese, the instructions of Theodore Beza and other prominent reformed theologians. Their names were: Martial Alba, a native of Montauban; Pierre Ecrivain, of Boulogne, in Gascony; Bernard Seguin, of La Reolle, in Bazadois; Charles Favre, of Blanzac; and Pierre Naviheres, of Limoges. A short time before Easter, 1552, these young men, who had reached different stages in their course of study,[581] conceived it to be their duty to return to their native land, whence the most pressing calls for additional laborers qualified to instruct others were daily coming to Switzerland. Their plan was cordially endorsed by Beza, before whom it was first laid by one of their number who had been an inmate of his home, and then by the Church of Lausanne; for it evidenced the purity and sincerity of their zeal. Provided with cordial letters from Lausanne, as well as from Geneva, through which they passed, they started each for his native city, intending to labor first of all for the conversion of their own kindred and neighbors. But a different field, and a shorter term of service than they had anticipated, were in store for them. At Lyons, having accepted the invitation of a fellow-traveller to visit him at his country-seat, they were surprised on the first of May, 1552, by the provost and his guards, and, although they had committed no violation of the king's edicts by proclaiming the doctrines they believed, were hurried to the archiepiscopal prison, and confined in separate dungeons. From their prayers for divine assistance they were soon summoned to appear singly before the "official"--the ecclesiastical judge to whom the archbishop deputed his judicial functions.[582] The answers to the interrogatories, of which they transmitted to their friends a record, it has been truly said, put to shame the lukewarmness of our days by their courage, and amaze us by the presence of mind and the wonderful acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures they display.[583] He who will peruse them in the worm-eaten pages of the "Actiones Martyrum," in which their letters were collected by the pious zeal of a contemporary, cannot doubt the proficiency these youthful prisoners had attained, both in sacred and in human letters, at the feet of the renowned Beza. Their unanswerable defence, however, only secured their more speedy condemnation as heretics. On the thirteenth of May they were sentenced to the flames; but an appeal which they made from the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge, on the plea that it contravened the laws of France, secured delay until their case could be laid before parliament. Months elapsed. Tidings of the danger that overhung the young students of Lausanne reached Beza and Calvin, and called forth their warm sympathy.[584]

[Sidenote: Unavailing intercessions.]

The best efforts of Beza and Viret were put forth in their behalf. A long succession of attempts to secure their release on the part of the canton of Berne individually, and of the four Protestant cantons of Switzerland collectively, was the result. One letter to Henry received a highly encouraging reply. An embassy from Zurich, sent when the king's word had not been kept, was haughtily informed that Henry expected the cantons to trouble him no further with the matter, and to avoid interfering with the domestic affairs of his country, as he himself abstained from intermeddling with theirs.[585] Subsequent letters and embassies to the monarch, intercessions with Cardinal de Tournon, Archbishop of Lyons, who would appear to have given assurances which he never intended to fulfil, and all the other steps dictated by Christian affection, were similarly fruitless. In fact, nothing protracted the term of the imprisonment of the "Five Scholars" but the need in which Henry felt himself to be of retaining the alliance and support of Berne. Yet when, as a final appeal, that powerful canton begged the life of its "stipendiaries" as a "purely royal and liberal gift, which it would esteem as great and precious as if his Majesty had presented it an inestimable sum of silver or gold," other political motives prevented him from yielding to its entreaties. The fear lest his compliance might furnish the emperor and Pope, against whom he was contending, with a handle for impugning his devotion to the church, was more powerful than his desire to conciliate the Bernese. The Parliament of Paris decreed that the death of the "Five" by fire should take place on the sixteenth of May, 1553, and the king refused to interpose his pardon.[586]

Their mission to France had not, however, been in vain. It is no hyperbole of the historian of the reformed churches, when he likens their cells to five _pulpits_, from which the Word of God resounded through the entire city and much farther.[587] The results of their heroic fortitude, and of the wide dissemination of copies of the confession of their Christian faith, were easily traced in the conversion of many within and without the prison; while the memory of their joyful constancy on their way to the place of execution--which rather resembled a triumphal than an ignominious procession--and in the flames, was embalmed in the heart of many a spectator.[588]

[Sidenote: Activity of the canton of Berne.]

The Bernese were not discouraged by the ill-success of their intercessions. Three times in the early part of the succeeding year (1554) they begged, but with no better results, for the release of Paris Panier, a man learned in the civil law.[589] With equal earnestness they took the part of the persecuted reformers against the violence of their enemies on many successive occasions. It was all in vain. The libertine king, who saw no merit in the purity of life of the professors of the "new doctrines," and no mark of Antichrist in the profligacy of Paul the Third or of Julius the Third, but viewed with horror the permission granted by the latter to the faithful of Paris to eat eggs, butter and cheese during Lent,[590] maintained his more than papal orthodoxy, and stifled the promptings of a heart by nature not averse to pity.

[Sidenote: Progress in Normandy.]

More than three years had passed away since the publication of the Edict of Chateaubriand, but none of the fruits which its authors had predicted were visible. The number of the reformed brought to trial, and especially of those condemned to the flames, gradually diminished, whilst it was notorious that the opponents of the dominant church were rapidly multiplying. In some provinces--in Normandy, for example--their placards were mysteriously posted on the walls, and their songs deriding the Franciscan monks were sung in the dark lanes of the cities. Once they had ventured to interrupt the discourse of a preacher on the topic of purgatory, by loud expressions of dissent; but when on the next day the subject was resumed, numbers of hearers left the church with cries of "_au fol, au fol_," and forced those who would have arrested them in the name of the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, to seek refuge from a shower of stones in an adjoining monastery.[591]

[Sidenote: Proposal to establish the Spanish Inquisition.]

The zealous friends of the church, as well as those who were enriched by confiscations, represented to the king that this state of things arose from the fact that the higher magistrates, themselves tainted with heresy, connived at its spread, and that the "presidial" judges abstained from employing the powers conferred by the edict, through fear of compromising themselves with the sovereign courts. Nor could ecclesiastical courts accomplish much, since the secular judges, to whom an appeal was open, found means to clear the guilty. They insisted that the only remedy was the introduction of the _Inquisition_ in the form in which it had proved so efficacious in Spain and Italy. This, it was said, could be attained by taking away the appeal that had hitherto been allowed from the decisions of the church courts, and compelling the nearest secular court to enforce their sentences. It was, furthermore, proposed to confiscate, for the king's benefit, all the property of fugitives, disregarding the claims even of those who had purchased from them without collusion.[592]

[Sidenote: Opposition of parliament.]

In secret sessions held at the house of Bertrand, keeper of the seals, at which were present several of the presidents of parliament known to be least friendly to the Reformation, the necessary legislation was matured at the instance of the Cardinal of Lorraine.[593] But, when the edicts establishing the Spanish inquisition were submitted, by order of the king, to the Parliament of Paris, it soon became evident that not even the intrigues of the presidents who were favorable to them could secure their registration. In the hope of better success, the edicts were for the time withdrawn, and submitted, a few months later, to the part of parliament that held its sessions in summer,[594] accompanied by royal letters strictly enjoining their reception (lettres de jussion). Twice the _gens du roi_ were heard in favor of the new system, pleading its necessity, the utility of enlarging the jurisdiction of the church courts, especially in the case of apostatizing monks and fanatical preachers, and the fact that parliament itself had testified that it was not averse to an inquisition--not only by recording the edicts of St. Louis and Philip the Fair, but also by two recent registrations of the powers of the Inquisitor of the Faith, Matthieu Ory.[595] After many delays and a prolonged discussion, parliament decided by a large majority that it could not comply with the king's commands, and would indicate to his Majesty other means of eradicating heresy more consistent with the spirit of Christianity.[596]

The president, Seguier, and a counsellor (Adrien du Drac) were deputed to justify before the monarch the course taken by parliament. The royal court was at this time at Villers-Cotterets, not far from Soissons, and the commissioners were informed on their arrival that Henry, displeased and scandalized at the delays of parliament, had begun to suspect it of being badly advised respecting religion and the obedience due to the church. He had said "that, if twelve judges were necessary to try Lutherans, they could not be found among the members of that body." The deputies were warned that they must expect to hear harsh words from the king's lips. Admitted, on the twenty-second of October, into Henry's presence, President Seguier delivered before the Duke of Guise, Constable Montmorency, Marshal St. Andre, and other dignitaries civil and ecclesiastical, an address full of noble sentiments.[597]

[Sidenote: Speech of President Seguier in opposition.]

"Parliament," said Seguier, "consists of one hundred and sixty members, who, for ability and conscientious discharge of duty, cannot be matched. I know not any of the number to be alienated from the true faith. Indeed, no greater misfortune could befall the judicature, than that the supreme court should forfeit the confidence of the monarch by whom its members were appointed. It is not from personal fear that we oppose the introduction of the Inquisition. An inquisition, when well administered, may not, perhaps, always be injurious. Yet Trajan, an excellent emperor, abolished it as against the early Christians, persecuted as the 'Lutherans' now are; and he preferred to depend upon the declarations of those who revealed themselves, rather than to foster the spread of the curse of informers and sow fear and distrust in families. But it is as _magistrates_ that we dread, or rather abhor, the establishment of a bloody tribunal, before which denunciation takes the place of proof, where the accused is deprived of the natural means of defence, and where no judicial forms are observed. We allege nothing of which we cannot furnish recent examples. Many of those whom the agents of the Inquisition had condemned have appealed to parliament. In revising these procedures, we found them so full of absurdities and follies, that, if charity forbids our suspecting those who already discharge this function among us of dishonesty and malice, it permits and even bids us deplore their ignorance and presumption. Yet it is to such judges that you are asked, Sire, to deliver over your faithful subjects, bound hand and foot, by removing the resource of appeal."