Chapter VIII (3)

The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis contained but one article on the subject of religion--that which bound the monarchs of Spain and France to put forth their united exertions for securing a "holy universal council." But common report had it that the omission of more detailed reference to the subject lying so near to the heart of both kings was fully compensated by a secret treaty taken up exclusively with this subject.[682] That treaty was represented as developing a plan which contemplated nothing less than the entire and violent destruction of heresy by the united efforts of their Catholic and Very Christian Majesties. By a single concerted massacre of all dissidents, the whole of Europe was to be brought back to its allegiance to the see of St. Peter.[683] Unfortunately, the secret treaty, if it ever existed, has never come to light; nor have we the testimony of a single person who pretends to have seen it, or to be acquainted with its contents. Indeed, the circumstances of the case seem to render such a united effort as the conjectural treaty supposes either Quixotic or superfluous--Quixotic, if the two monarchs, without the concurrence of the empire, whose crown had passed from Charles, not to his son Philip, but to his brother Ferdinand, should institute a scheme for a general crusade against the professors of the doctrines that had already gained a firm foothold in one-half of Germany, in Great Britain, and the Scandinavian lands of Northern Europe; superfluous, if it respected only the dominions of the high contracting powers. For the purpose of Henry was no less clearly and repeatedly proclaimed than that of Philip. No subject of either crown could ignore at whom the first blow would be struck, after the pressure of the foreign war had been removed.[684] Nor, in the execution of their plans, could either monarch imagine himself to stand in need of the assistance of his royal brother; for it was not an open war to be carried on, but as yet a struggle with _persons_, numerous without doubt, but, nevertheless, _suspected_ rather than _convicted_ of heresy, and discovered, for the most part, only by diligent search.

[Sidenote: The Prince of Orange learns Henry's and Philip's designs.]

But, if we have reason to think that the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was accompanied by no secret and formal stipulations having reference to a combined assault upon Protestantism, we at least know that the negotiations it occasioned gave rise to a singular disclosure of the policy of Philip the Second in the Netherlands--a policy which he deemed applicable to Christendom entire. Among the ambassadors of Philip and the hostages for the execution of the treaty was William of Orange, the future deliverer of the United Provinces. Henry, supposing that the nobleman to whom so honorable a trust had been committed enjoyed the confidence of his master to an equal extent with the Duke of Alva, his colleague, imprudently broached the subject of the suppression of heresy. The prince wisely encouraged the misapprehension, in order to avoid incurring the contempt in which he would have been held had the discovery been made that Philip had not taken him into his confidence. Henry, waxing earnest on the theme, revealed the intention of Philip and Alva to establish in the Netherlands "a worse than Spanish Inquisition." Thus much the prince himself published to the world.[685] The learned President De Thou adds that Philip's subsequent design was to join his arms to those of France, to make a joint attack upon the "new sectaries."[686] This is not altogether impossible. But the plan was general and vague. Its execution was still in the distant future. Its details were probably but little elaborated. If, outside of the dominions of the two monarchs, any points of attack were proposed with distinctness, they were the free city of Strasbourg, the Canton of Berne with its dependency, the _Pays de Vaud_--but, above all, _Geneva_.

[Sidenote: Danger menacing the city of Geneva.]

That small republic, insignificant in size, but powerful through the influence of its teachers and the books with which its presses teemed, was the eyesore of Roman Catholic France. It was the home of French refugees for religion's sake; and the strictest laws could not check the stream of money that flowed thither for their support. It was the nursery of the reformed doctrines; and the death penalty was ineffectual to cut off intercourse, or to dam up the flood of Calvinistic books which it poured over the kingdom.

Calvin himself and his friends momentarily expected the blow to fall upon their devoted heads.[687] But the same hand that so often in the eventful history of Geneva interposed in its behalf, by a signal occurrence warded off the stroke.

[Sidenote: A joint expedition against Geneva proposed by Henry,]

[Sidenote: but declined by the Duke of Alva.]

The apprehensions of the Genevese were well founded. In June, 1559, and but a few days before the date of Calvin's letter, Philip the Second made the offer to the French king, through the Duke of Alva, then in Paris, to aid him in exterminating the Protestants of France. Henry declined for the moment to avail himself of the assistance, which he regarded as unnecessary; but he sent the Constable Montmorency to propose that both monarchs should make a joint expedition against Geneva, and declared himself ready to employ all his forces in the pious undertaking. It may surprise us to learn that the prudent duke in turn rejected the crusade against the Protestant citadel. Even Philip and his equally bigoted agents could close their ears to the call to become the instruments in the extirpation of heresy. While they could see neither reason nor religion in the temporizing policy occasionally manifested by other Roman Catholic sovereigns in their dealings with Protestant subjects, Philip and Alva never suffered their hatred of schism to be so uncompromising as to interfere with what they considered a material interest of the state. Unfortunately for Philip, the quarrel of Geneva would inevitably be espoused by the Bernese and the inhabitants of the other Protestant cantons of Switzerland; and it was certainly undesirable to provoke the enmity of a powerful body of freemen, situated in dangerous proximity to the "Franche Comte"--the remnant of Burgundy still in Spanish hands. It was no less imprudent, in view of future contingencies, to render still more difficult the passage from his Catholic Majesty's dominions in Northern Italy to the Netherlands. So Alva, as he himself reports to his master, rejected the constable's proposition, contenting himself with a few empty phrases respecting the great profit that would flow to the cause of God and of royalty from an exclusion of Roman Catholic subjects from that pestilent city on the shores of Lake Leman.[688]

[Sidenote: Parliament suspected of heretical leanings.]

Henry had deemed the progress of the reformed doctrines in France so formidable[689] as to dictate the necessity of making peace with Philip, even upon humiliating terms. But where should he begin the savage work for which he had made such sacrifices? His spiritual advisers pointed to the courts of justice, which they accused of being lukewarm, and even infected with heresy. For years they had been dwelling upon the same theme. In 1556 the Sorbonne had denounced the parliament itself as altogether heretical;[690] and, although Henry showed some indignation at the suggestion, and sarcastically asked whether the theologians aspired to become the supreme judges of the kingdom, it was notorious, two years later, that they had succeeded in sowing in his breast a general distrust respecting the orthodoxy of the entire body.[691] Nor was the suspicion groundless. Chosen from among the most highly educated of French jurisconsults, belonging to a court upon which high prerogatives had been conferred, holding for life a post of enviable distinction, and regarded as the supreme guardians of law and equity, it was in accordance with the very nature of things that the counsellors of the Parisian parliament should so far participate in the progress of ideas in the sixteenth century as to begin to look with abhorrence upon the bloody task imposed on them by the royal edicts. Into what profession would liberal views gain an earlier admission than that of the appointed expositors of the rules of right?

Some recent occurrences not only seemed to demonstrate the fact that the principles of clemency had penetrated into the halls of parliament, but pointed out the very chamber which was most influenced by them. In the _Tournelle_, or criminal chamber of parliament--before which those accused of Protestantism most naturally came--under the presidency of Seguier,[692] the majority of the counsellors had recently conducted a trial of four youths, on a charge of "Lutheranism," in so skilful a manner as to avoid asking any question the answer to which might compromise the prisoners. And when the bigots insisted on propounding a crucial inquiry, and elicited a decided expression of Protestant sentiments, some of the judges showed unmistakable sympathy, and the chamber, to save appearances in some slight degree, condemned them to leave the country within a fortnight, instead of instantly confirming the sentence of death which had been pronounced against three of their number by the inferior courts.[693] Other "Christaudins" had been sent to their bishops for trial, although their guilt was patent to all.[694] In fine, the Cardinal of Lorraine laid to the account of parliament the spread of the new doctrines throughout France.[695]

[Sidenote: The Mercuriale.]

In order to discover the truth of the charges, a convocation of the members of all the chambers was ordered for the last Wednesday of April, Such a gathering for inquiry into the sentiments and morals of the judges was called, from the day of the week on which it was held, a _Mercuriale_.[696] The object of the convocation was announced by the royal procureur-general, Bourdin, to be the establishment of an understanding between the "Grand' chambre" and the "Tournelle"--the former of which relentlessly condemned the "Lutherans" to the flames, while the latter, to the great scandal of justice, had let off several with simple banishment. The wily adversary of the "new doctrines," therefore, called upon the judges to express their opinions respecting the best method of effecting a return to uniformity. The snare was not laid in vain. For in the free declaration of sentiment, in which the members according to custom indulged, several judges were bold enough to call for the assembling of the Oecumenical Council promised by the lately ratified treaty of peace, as the sole method of extirpating error, and to propose meanwhile the suspension of the capital penalties ordained by the royal edicts.[697]

At his admission into parliament each judge had taken an oath to maintain inviolable secrecy in reference to the deliberations of the court. This was rightly supposed to relate in particular to the expressions of opinion before any formal decision. Nevertheless, the king was at once acquainted by the First President, Le Maistre, and by Minard, one of the presidents _a mortier_, with the entire proceedings of the _Mercuriale_. He was told that the "Lutheranism" of certain judges was now manifest. They had spoken in abominable terms of the mass, of the ecclesiastical ordinances, and of prevailing abuses. It would be the ruin of the church if such daring were suffered to pass by unrebuked.[698]

The representation of these enormities inflamed Henry's anger. His courtiers took good care not to suffer it to cool. What if, emboldened by impunity, the Protestants, of whose rapid growth in all parts of France such startling reports were brought to him, should attempt to carry out the plan that was talked of among them, and seize the opportunity of the wedding festivities solemnly to present to his Majesty, by the hands of one of the nobles, the confession of faith of their churches? What punishment of the audacious agent employed would remove from the minds of the orthodox foreign princes present at court the sinister impression that heresy had struck deep root in the realm of the Very Christian King?[699]

[Sidenote: Henry goes in person to listen to the deliberations, June 10, 1559.]

If a candid gentleman of the bed-chamber, like Vieilleville, privately urged Henry to reject the advice of prelates in secular matters, and respectfully decline the assumption of the post of theologian or inquisitor-general of the faith, his remonstrances were overborne by the suggestions of Diana and the Guises, who hoped to reap a rich harvest from new confiscations.[700] The king was entreated to go in person to listen to the discussions in parliament. Early on the morning of the tenth of June, his chamber was visited by a host of ecclesiastics--among them four cardinals, two archbishops, two bishops, and several doctors of the Sorbonne, with De Mouchy, the inquisitor, at their head. They urged him to follow out their suggestion, and were so successful in overcoming his reluctance that, as a contemporary wrote, he thought himself consigned to perdition if he failed to go.[701]

[Sidenote: Parliament meets in the Augustinian monastery.]

The magnificent hall of the royal palace on the island of the "Cite," in which parliament was accustomed to meet, was in course of preparation for the festivities that were to accompany the marriages of Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, with Philip the Second of Spain, and of his only sister, Margaret, with the Duke of Savoy. Parliament was consequently sitting in the monastery of the Augustinian friars on the southern bank of the Seine.[702] Thither Henry proceeded in state with a retinue of noblemen, and accompanied by the archers of his body-guard. Taking his seat upon the elevated throne prepared for him, with the constable, the Guises, and the princes that had attended him, on his right and left, Henry made to the judges a short address indicative of his purpose to take advantage of the peace in order to labor for the re-establishment of the faith, and of his desire to obtain the advice of his supreme court.[703] When the king had concluded, Bertrand, Cardinal Archbishop of Sens and Keeper of the Seals, announced the command of his Majesty that the consideration of the religious questions undertaken in the _Mercuriale_ should be resumed.

[Sidenote: Fearlessness of the counsellors.]

[Sidenote: Anne du Bourg.]

The counsellors could be in no doubt respecting the motives of this solemn and unusual audience; yet they entered upon the discussion with the utmost fearlessness.[704] Claude Viole boldly recommended the convocation of an oecumenical council. Du Faur declaimed against the flagrant abuses of the church. While admitting that the trouble of the kingdom arose from diversity in religion, he pointed out the necessity of a careful scrutiny into the true authors of those troubles, lest the accuser of others should himself be met with a retort similar to that of the ancient prophet to King Ahab--"It is thou that troublest Israel."[705] But Anne du Bourg, a nephew of a late Chancellor of France, and a learned and eloquent speaker, committed himself still further to the cause of liberty and truth. He gave thanks to Almighty God for having brought Henry to listen to the decision of so worthy a matter, and entreated the monarch to give it his attention, as the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ, which ought to be upheld by kings. He advocated a suspension of all persecution against those who were stigmatized as heretics, until the assembling of a council; and warned his hearers that it was a thing of no slight importance to condemn to death those who, in the midst of the flames, called on the name of the Saviour of men.[706] Another counsellor advocated the granting to all the "Lutherans" of the kingdom a term of six months, within which they might recant their errors, and at its close might withdraw from France. But there were others who recommended the employment of severe measures; and the first president recalled with approval the example of Philip Augustus, who, in one day, had burned six hundred heretics, and the fate of the Waldenses, suffocated in the houses and caves in which they had taken refuge.[707]

[Sidenote: Henry is displeased, and orders the arrest of two of the counsellors.]

At the conclusion of the deliberation, Henry summoned to him the noblemen who had accompanied him, and, after having consulted them, angrily declared his great displeasure at the discovery that many of his judges had departed from the faith, and his determination to inflict upon them an exemplary punishment. Then turning to Montmorency, he ordered him to arrest two of the counsellors that had spoken in his presence--Louis du Faur and Anne du Bourg. The constable at once obeyed, and gave them over into the custody of Gabriel, Count Montgomery, captain of the Scottish body-guard. Three other judges soon shared their rigorous imprisonment in the Bastile,[708] and as many more escaped only by flight. It was, however, with the boldness of Du Bourg that Henry was chiefly enraged. He swore that he would see him burned with his own eyes.[709]

[Sidenote: The first National Synod, May, 1559.]

But, whilst the enemies of the Reformation were devising new schemes of persecution, and were preparing to strike a blow at the more tolerant sentiments which had stolen into the breasts of the very judges of parliament, its friends took a step that was at once indicative of its progress and dictated by its necessities. A few days before Henry was persuaded to call for a continuation of the discussion commenced at the "Mercuriale"--on the twenty-sixth of May[710]--the first National Synod of the French Protestants convened in the city of Paris. It was a small assemblage in comparison with some others on the list of these national councils extending down for about a century, and its sessions were held with the utmost secrecy in a house in the Faubourg St. Germain. But it performed for French Protestantism the two important services of giving an authoritative statement of its system of doctrine, and of establishing the principles of its form of government. The confession of faith was full and explicit, as well on the points in which the Protestant and the Roman churches agreed, as respecting the distinctive tenets of the reformed. The "diabolical imaginations" of Servetus were equally condemned with the gross abuses of monastic vows, pilgrimages, celibacy, auricular confession, and indulgences. The pure observance of the sacraments was established, as well against their corrupt and superstitious use in the papal church, as against the "fantastic sacramentarians" who rejected them entirely. Nor need we be surprised to find the warrant of magistrates to interfere _in behalf_ of the truth formally recognized. The right of the individual conscience was a right for the most part ignored by thinking men on both sides during the sixteenth century--covered and hidden by the fallacious application of the principle of universal obligation to the inflexible law of right and of God. The lesson of liberty based upon order was learned only in the school of long and severe persecution. Even after thirty-seven or eight years of violent suffering, the Protestant church of France admitted as an article in her creed, that "God has placed the sword in the hand of magistrates to repress the sins committed not only against the _second_ table of God's commandments, but also against the _first_!"[711]

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical discipline adopted.]

The "Ecclesiastical Discipline" laid the foundation of the organization of the Protestants in France. Thoroughly democratic and representative in its character, it instituted, or rather recognized, a court--the consistory--in each particular congregation, with its popular element in the _superintendents_ (surveillants) or _elders_, who sat with the pastors to adjudicate upon the inferior and local concerns of the members. It provided for the more direct participation of the people in the control of affairs by making the offices of elder and deacon elective, and not perpetual. It provided a court of appeal in the provincial _colloques_ or _synods_, to be held at least twice a year, in which each church was to be represented by its pastor and elder. Above all stood the _National Synod_, the ultimate ecclesiastical authority. The constitution strove to preclude the establishment of a hierarchy, by declaring all churches and ministers equal, and to secure correctness of teaching, not only by requiring the ministers to sign the confession, but by providing for the deposition of those who had lapsed from the faith.

Thus it was that, in the midst of a monarchy surpassed by none for its arbitrary and tyrannical administration, and not many hundred paces from the squares where for a generation the eyes of the public had been periodically feasted with the sight of human sacrifices offered up in the name of religion, the founders of the Huguenot church framed the plan of an ecclesiastical republic, in which the elements of popular representation and decisive authority in an ultimate tribunal, the embodiment of the judgment of the entire church, were perhaps more completely realized than they had ever before been since the times of the early Christians.[712] The few ministers that had met in an upper room, at the hazard of their lives, to vindicate the profession of faith of their persecuted co-religionists, and to sketch the plan of their churchly edifice, as noiselessly retraced their steps to the congregations committed to their charge. But they had planted the seed of a mighty tree which would stand the blasts of many a tempest--always buffeted by the winds, and bearing the scars of many a conflict with the elements--but proudly pre-eminent, and firm as the rock around which its sturdy roots were wound.

[Sidenote: Marriages and festivities of the court.]

Henry had sworn to behold with his own eyes the punishment of Anne du Bourg. But the grateful sight was not in store for him. From the Mercuriale and the persecution of heretics he turned his attention to the celebration of the marriages which were to cement the indissoluble peace that had at length been concluded between the kingdoms of France and Spain. The most splendid preparations were made for the entertainment of the brilliant train of noblemen who came to represent the dignity of the crown of Spain, and to claim the destined bride of Philip. The "Hotel des Tournelles"--a favorite palace of more than one king of France--was magnificently decorated; for in its great hall the nuptials were appointed to be celebrated. In the broad street of Saint Antoine, in front of this palace, the lists were erected, and the beauty and nobility of France viewed, from the windows on either side, the contest of the most distinguished knights, and applauded their feats of daring and skill. A few paces farther, and just inside the moat, stood a frowning pile, whose sombre and repulsive front might have struck a beholder as being as much out of place as the skeleton at the feast--the ill-omened Bastile.[713] Five prisoners, immured for their conscientious boldness in its gloomy dungeons, and awaiting a terrible fate, distinctly heard, day after day, as the tourney continued, the inspiriting notes of the clarion and hautboy, deepening by contrast the horrors of their situation.[714] There was the same incongruity between the king's pursuit of pleasure and his ferocity. From the festivities, it is said, he turned aside to order Montgomery to proceed, the very moment the tourney was over, to the _Pays de Caux_--a hot-bed of the "Lutheran" heresy--to destroy with the sword the resisting, to put out the eyes of the suspected, and to torture and burn the guilty.[715] It was believed, moreover, that he himself would then proceed to the southern parts of France, and set on foot a rigorous persecution of the Protestants, with whom those regions swarmed.[716]

The nuptial torches burned not less bright for the gloom overhanging the despised and abominated Lutherans. But in an instant, as by the touch of a magician's wand, they were turned into the funereal tapers of Henry the Second.[717]

[Sidenote: The tournament, June 30, 1559.]

[Sidenote: Henry mortally wounded by Montgomery's lance.]

[Sidenote: His death.]

On the thirtieth of June,[718] when the sports of the day were about ending, the gay monarch must needs re-enter the lists in person, and break another lance in honor of Diana of Poitiers, whose colors he wore. The queen had indeed begged him to avoid, for that day at least, the dangerous pastime; she had been terrified, so she said, by one of those strangely vivid dreams that wear, after the event, so much of the guise of prophetic sight.[719] But Henry made light of her fears, and closed his ears to her warning. His choice of an antagonist fell upon Montgomery, captain of his Scottish archers; and although the latter begged leave to decline the perilous honor, the king refused to excuse him.[720] At the appointed signal, the knights rode rapidly to the rude encounter. But Henry's visor was not proof against the lance of Montgomery, and either broke or was unclasped in the shock. The lance itself was splintered by the blow, and the piece which Montgomery, in his surprise and fright, had neglected instantly to lower, entering above the monarch's eye, penetrated far toward the brain.[721] Rescued from falling, but covered with blood, the wounded prince was hastily stripped of his armor, amid the loud lamentations of the horror-stricken spectators, and borne into the magnificent saloon of the _Palais des Tournelles_. Here, after lingering a few days, he died on the tenth of July.

It was a month, to the hour, since Henry's visit to parliament.[722]

The body was laid out in state in the very room appointed for the nuptial balls. A splendidly wrought tapestry representing the conversion of St. Paul hung near the remains, but the words, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" embroidered upon it, admitted too pointed an application, and the cloth was soon put out of sight.[723] The public, however, needed no such pictorial reminder. The persecutor had been stopped as suddenly in his career of blood as the young Pharisee near Damascus. But it may be doubted whether the eyes with which he had sworn to see Anne du Bourg burned beheld such a vision of glory as blinded the future apostle's vision. It is more than probable, indeed, that Henry never spoke after receiving the fatal wound;[724] although the report obtained that, as he was carried from the unfortunate tilting-ground, he turned his bleeding face toward the prison in which the parliament counsellors were languishing, and expressed fear lest he had wronged them--a suggestion which the Cardinal of Lorraine hastened to answer by representing it as a temptation of the Prince of Evil.[725]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: "La Facon de Geneve"--the Huguenot service.]

The charge of having prayed, or administered the sacrament of
Baptism or of the Lord's Supper, or taken part in the celebration
of Marriage, "according to the fashion of Geneva," so frequently
appears in the documents of the first century after the
establishment of the Reformation in France as the chief offence of
its early adherents and martyrs, that it is worth while to examine
in some detail the model of worship that has exerted so important
an influence upon the practice of the Huguenots and their
descendants down to the present time.

While discarding the cumbrous ceremonial of the Roman Church, on
the ground that it was not only overloaded with superfluous
ornament, but too fatally disfigured by irrational, superstitious,
or impious observances to be susceptible of correction or
adaptation to the wants of their infant congregations, the founders
of the reformed churches of the continent did not leave the
inexperienced ministers to whose care these congregations were
confided altogether without a guide in the conduct of divine
worship. Esteeming a written account of the manner in which the
public services were customarily performed to be the safest
directory for the use of the young or ill-equipped, as well as the
surest means of silencing the shameless calumnies of their
malignant opponents, they early framed liturgies, not to be imposed
as obligatory forms, but rather to serve an important end in
securing an orderly conformity in the general arrangement followed
in their churches.

[Sidenote: Farel's "Maniere et fasson," 1533.]

The earliest of these liturgical compositions appears to have been
a small and thin volume of eighty-seven pages, which, as we learn
from the colophon, was "printed by Pierre de Wingle at Neufchatel,
on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year 1533;" that is to
say, on the same press which, about a twelvemonth later, sent forth
the famous "Placards" against the mass, and a year afterward the
Protestant version of the Bible, translated into French by
Olivetanus. It is entitled "_La Maniere et fasson qu'on tient es
lieux que Dieu de sa grace a visites_." It was undoubtedly composed
by Guillaume Farel, and, like all the other tracts of that vigorous
and popular reformer, it has become extremely rare. Indeed, the
work was altogether unknown until a single copy, the only one thus
far discovered, was found by Professor Baum, of Strasbourg, in the
Library of Zurich.[726]

What lends additional interest to the liturgy of Farel, is the
circumstance that it is at the same time, as the modern editor
remarks, "_the earliest Confession of Faith_ of the Reformed
Churches, _their first apology_ in answer to the atrocious, absurd
and lying accusations which the hatred of their enemies, especially
among the clergy, had invented at will, or had borrowed from pagan
calumnies against the Christians of the first centuries." "Do they
not exclaim," writes Farel in his preface, "that those accursed
dogs of heretics who would uphold this new law live like beasts,
renouncing everything, maintaining neither law nor faith, abjuring
all the sacraments; that they reject Baptism, and make light of
the Holy Table of our Lord; that they despise the Virgin Mary and
the saints, and observe no marriage." To remove the prejudice thus
engendered from the minds of the ignorant, is the chief design of
the writer, who accordingly appeals at each step for his warrant to
the Holy Scriptures, and entreats the reader to have no regard for
the antiquity of the abuses he combats, or for the reputation of
their advocates, but simply to examine for himself what "our good
Saviour Jesus has instituted and commanded." The offices are five
in number; for Baptism, Marriage, the Lord's Supper, Preaching, and
the Visitation of the Sick; but to a certain extent, and
particularly in the last-mentioned office, they are little more
than a series of directions for the orderly conduct of worship. In
other cases the service is very fully written out.

[Sidenote: Calvin's liturgy, 1542.]

Nine years after the publication of this very simple liturgy of
Farel, appeared the first edition of the liturgy of Geneva,
composed by Calvin, or the "Prayers after the fashion of Geneva,"
as they were usually designated by contemporary Roman Catholic
writers. Until recently the first edition was supposed to have been
published in 1543, but Professor Felix Bovet, of Neufchatel, has
been so fortunate as to find a copy in the Royal Library of
Stuttgart, bearing the date of 1542. This is probably the solitary
remaining specimen of the original impression.[727] Although
without name of place, it was doubtless printed in Geneva. The
title is: "_La Forme des Prieres et Chantz Ecclesiastiques, avec la
Maniere d'administrer les Sacremens et consacrer le Marriage, selon
la coustume de l'Eglise Ancienne. M.DXLII._"

The following brief sketch will perhaps convey a sufficient idea of
the form "which is ordinarily used" for the public worship of the
morning of the Lord's day.

A brief _invocation_ ("Our help be in the name of the Lord who made
heaven and earth") is followed by an _exhortation_ addressed to the
congregation ("My brethren, let each one of you present himself
before the face of the Lord with confession of his faults and sins,
following in his heart my words"). The _Confession_, which is the
most beautiful and characteristic part of the liturgy, comes next.
Used by Theodore de Beze and his companions at the Colloquy of
Poissy, with wonderful impressiveness, as preparatory to that
reformer's grand vindication of the creed of the Protestants of
France, it has been imagined by many that it was composed by him
for this occasion. But it had already constituted a part of the
public devotions of the French and Swiss Protestants for eighteen
or twenty years. A _Psalm_ was then sung, and a prayer offered "to
implore God for the grace of His Holy Spirit, to the end that His
Word may be faithfully expounded to the honor of His Name and the
edification of the church, and may be received with such humility
and obedience as are becoming." The form is "at the discretion of
the minister." After the sermon comes a longer prayer for all
persons in authority; for Christian pastors; for the enlightenment
of the ignorant and the edification of those who have been brought
to the truth; for the comfort of the afflicted and distressed;[728]
closing with supplications for temporal and spiritual blessings in
behalf of those present. The service was concluded by the form of
benediction, Numbers, vi. 24-26.

Colladon, in his life of the reformer, tells us that Calvin
"collected (recueillit), for the use of the church of Geneva, the
form of ecclesiastical prayers, with the manner of administering
the sacraments and celebrating marriage, and a notice for the
visitation of the sick, as they are now placed with the Psalms."
(Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, vi., pp. xvii., xviii.) And Calvin
himself, in his farewell address to his fellow-ministers (April 28,
1564), as taken down from memory by Pinaut, observed: "As to the
prayers for Sunday, I took the form of Strasbourg, and borrowed the
greater part of it." (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, Lettres francaises,
ii. 578.) The Strasbourg liturgy to which Calvin here refers was
one which he had himself composed for the use of the French refugee
church of Strasbourg, when acting as its pastor, during his exile
from Geneva (1538-1541). The earliest edition known to be extant is
that of which a single copy exists in the collection of M. Gaiffe,
and of which M. O. Douen has for the first time given an account in
his "Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot," Paris, 1878, i.
334-339. This Strasbourg liturgy of 1542 (the pseudo-_Roman_
edition already referred to, p. 275), like that of 1545 (which
Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss described in their edition of
Calvin's works, vi. 174, 175), contains some striking variations
from the Geneva forms. In particular, immediately after the
"Confession of Sins," it inserts these words: "Here the Minister
recites some word of Scripture to comfort consciences, and then
pronounces the absolution as follows:

"Let each one of you recognize himself to be truly a sinner,
humbling himself before God, and believe that our Heavenly Father
will be gracious unto him in Jesus Christ.

"To all those who thus repent and seek Jesus Christ for their
salvation, I declare the absolution of their sins, in the name of
the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

It was this Strasbourg liturgy of Calvin that was in the hands of
the framers of the English "Book of Common Prayer," and from this
they derived the introductory portion of the daily service.
"According to the first book of Edward VI., that service began with
the Lord's Prayer. The foreign reformers consulted recommended the
insertion of some preliminary forms; and hence the origin of the
Sentences, the Exhortation, the Confession, and the Absolution.
These elements were borrowed, not from any ancient formulary, but
from a ritual drawn up by Calvin for the church at Strasbourg." (C.
W. Baird, Eutaxia, or the Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical
Sketches, New York, 1855, p. 190.)

The origin of only one of the minor offices of the Geneva liturgy
can be distinctly traced to another and older source. The form for
the celebration of marriage is taken bodily from the "Maniere et
Fasson" of Farel, with the omission of two or three unimportant
sentences, and the alteration of a very few words--a trifling
change, dictated in each case by Calvin's keener literary taste.
The form for baptism, Calvin tells us expressly, was somewhat
roughly drafted by himself at Strasbourg, when the children of
Anabaptists were brought to him for baptism from distances of five
or ten leagues around. (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, ii. 578.)

The liturgy of Geneva, composed with rapidity under the pressure of
the times, but with the skill and fine literary finish that are
wont to characterize even the most hurried of Calvin's productions,
has maintained its position undisputed to the present time, being
the oldest of existing forms of worship in the reformed churches.
The gradual change in the French language since the date of its
composition has rendered necessary some modernizing of the style
both of the prayers and of the accompanying psalms. These
modifications, much more radical in the case of the metrical
psalms, took place in the eighteenth century, and commended
themselves so fully to the good sense of all French-speaking
Protestants as soon to be everywhere adopted. The MS. records of
the French church in New York (folio 45) contain, under date of
March 6, 1763, a resolution unanimously adopted in a meeting of the
heads of families and communicants, to change "la vielle version
des Pseaumes de David qui est en uzage parmy nous, et de prandre et
introduire dans notre Eglize les Pseaumes de la plus nouvelle
version qui est en uzage dans les Eglises de Geneve, Suisse et
Hollande." The liturgy has always been printed at the end of the
psalter, and the change of the one involved that of the other. It
has been noted above that the "Confession of Sins" was the most
characteristic part of Calvin's liturgy. In fact, the initial words
of this confession, "Seigneur Dieu, _Pere Eternel_ et
Toutpuissant," came to stand in the minds of the Roman Catholics
who heard them for the entire Protestant service. Bernard Palissy
accordingly tells us (Recepte Veritable, 1563, Bulletin, i. 93)
that a favorite expression of the Roman Catholics from Taillebourg,
when committing all sorts of excesses against the Protestants of
Saintes, was: "_Agimus_ a gagne _Pere Eternel_!" As _Agimus_ was
the first word of the customary grace said at meals by devout Roman
Catholics--"Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus," etc.--this
apparently enigmatical expression was only a profane formula to
celebrate the triumph of the Roman over the reformed church. See
Bulletin, xii. 247 and 469.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 516: Alluding to the compacts into which Francis had entered, the emperor accuses him of having purposely violated them all: "los quales nunca a guardado, como es notorio, sino por el tiempo que no a podido renobar guerra, o a querido esperar de hallar oportunidad de danarme con disimulacion." From Henry he anticipates little better treatment. Instruct. of Charles V. to the Infante Philip, Augsburg, Jan. 18, 1548, Pap. d'etat du Card, de Granvelle, iii. 285. It ought to be added, however, that both Francis and his son retorted with similar accusations; and that, in this case at least, all three princes seem to have spoken the exact truth.]

[Footnote 517: The dauphin Francis died at Tournon, Aug. 10, 1536, probably from the effects of imprudently drinking ice-water when heated by a game at ball. None the less was one of his dependants--the Count of Montecuccoli--compelled by torture to avow, or invent the story, that he had poisoned him at the instigation of Charles the Fifth. He paid the penalty of his weakness by being drawn asunder by four horses! How little Francis I. believed the story is seen from the magnificence and cordiality with which, three years later, he entertained the supposed author and abettor of the crime. See an interesting note of M. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, 184-186. The imperialists replied by attributing the supposed crime, with equal improbability, to Catharine de' Medici, the youthful bride of Henry, who succeeded to his brother's title and expectations. Charles of Angouleme, a prince whose inordinate ambition, if we may believe the memoirs of Vieilleville, led him to exhibit unmistakable tokens of joy at a false report of the drowning of his two elder brothers, died on the 8th of September, 1545, of infection, to which he wantonly exposed himself by entering a house and handling the clothes of the dead, with the presumptuous boast "that never had a son of France been known to die of the plague."]

[Footnote 518: See Brantome, Hommes illustres (Oeuvres, vii. 369, 370).]

[Footnote 519: This was as early as 1538. Memoires de Vieilleville (Ed. Petitot), liv. v. c. 24, 25.]

[Footnote 520: "The king is a _goodly tall gentleman_, well made in all the parts of his body, _a very grim countenance_, yet very gentle, meek, and well beloved of all his people." The Journey of the queen's ambassadors to Rome, anno 1555 (the last to pay reverence to the Pope, under Mary), printed in Hardwick, State Papers, I. 68.]

[Footnote 521: "Non senza pericolo," says Matteo Dandolo, "perche corrono molte volte alle sbarre con poco vedere, si che si abbatterono un giorno a correre all' improvviso il padre (Francis) contra il figlio, e diede lui alla buona memoria di quello un tal colpo nella fronte, che gli levo la carne piu che se gli avesse dato una gran frignoccola." Relazioni Venete, ii. 171.]

[Footnote 522: Relations Ven. (Ed. Tommaseo), i. 286.]

[Footnote 523: Histoire ecclesiastique, i., 43. The most striking features of the character of Henry are well delineated by the Venetian ambassadors who visited the court of France during the preceding and the present reigns. Even the Protestants who had experienced his severity speak well of his natural gentleness, and deplore the evils into which he fell through want of self-reliance. The discriminating Regnier de la Planche styles him "prince de doux esprit, mais de fort petit sens, et du tout propre a se laisser mener en lesse" (Histoire de l'estat de France, ed. Pantheon litt., 202). Claude de l'Aubespine draws a more flattering portrait, as might be expected from one who served as minister of state in the councils of Francis I. and the three succeeding monarchs: "Ce prince estoit, a la verite, tres-bien nay, tant de corps _que de l'esprit_.... Il avoit un air si affable et humain que, des le premier aspect, il emportoit le coeur et la devotion d'un chacun. Aussi a il este constamment chery et aime de tous ses subjets durant sa vie, desire et regrette apres sa mort" (Histoire particuliere de la cour du Roy Henry II., Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 277). Tavannes is less complimentary: "Le roy Henry eut les mesmes defauts de son predecesseur, l'esprit plus foible, et se peut dire le regne du connestable, de Mme. de Valentinois et de M. de Guise, non le sien." (Memoires de Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, ed. Petitot, i. 410.)]

[Footnote 524: Dr. Wotton to the Council, Paris, April 6, 1547, State Paper Office, and printed in Fraser-Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, i. 35, etc.]

[Footnote 525: De l'Aubespine (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 284, 285.]

[Footnote 526: Relaz. Venete, ii. 437, 438.]

[Footnote 527: The legate Santa Croce describes his qualities thus: "Erat Montmorantius animo alacri et prompto, ingenio acri, corpora vivido, somni ac vini parcissimus, negotiis vehementer deditus, etc." He mentions as remarkable the facility with which, in the midst of the most pressing affairs of state or military exigencies, he could give his attention, as grand master of the royal household, to the most minute matters respecting the king's food or dress. De Civilibus Gall. Dissens. Comment. (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Coll., v. 1429).]

[Footnote 528: The devoted "_connestabliste_" Begnier de la Planche does not conceal the aversion the head of the family which he delights in exalting entertained for letters: "Il avoit opinion," he writes, "que les lettres amolissoyent les gentilshommes et les faisoyent degenerer de leurs majeurs, et mesmes estoit persuade que les lettres avoyent engendre les heresies et accreu les lutheriens en telle nombre qu'ils estoyent au royaume; en sorte qu'il avoit en peu d'estime les scavans, et leurs livres." Histoire de l'estat de la France tant de la republique que de la religion sous le regne de Francois II., p. 309.]

[Footnote 529: The people were as a body declared attainted of treason, their _hotel-de-ville_ was razed to the ground, their written privileges were seized and reduced to ashes. The bells that had sounded out the tocsin, at the outbreak of the insurrection, were for the most part broken in pieces and melted. One miserable man was hung to the clapper of the same bell that he had rung to call the people to arms. Others for the like crime were broken on the wheel or burned alive. Tristan de Moneins, lieutenant of the King of Navarre, had been basely murdered by the citizens: they were now compelled to disinter his remains, being allowed the use of no implements, but compelled to scrape off the earth with their nails! De Thou, i. 459, etc.]

[Footnote 530: Brantome, Homines illustres (Oeuvres, viii., 129).]

[Footnote 531: Sir John Mason to Council, Poissy, Sept. 14, 1550, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 532: Claude de l'Aubespine, Histoire particuliere de la cour du Roy Henry II. (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 277.]

[Footnote 533: "Onorevolissimo universal carico che tiene." Relazioni Venete, ii. 166. It is somewhat painful to find from a letter of Margaret of Navarre, written after Henry's accession, that this amiable princess was compelled to depend, for the continuance of her paltry pension of 25,000 livres as sister of Francis, upon the kind offices of the constable. Lettres de Marguerite d'Angouleme, t. i., No. 154. The king's affection for Montmorency was so demonstrative that he ordered that, after their death, the constable's heart and his own should be buried together in a single monument, as an indication to posterity of his partiality. Jod. Sincerus (Itinerarium Galliae, 1627, pp. 281-284) takes the trouble to transcribe not less than three of the epitaphs in the Church of the Celestines, in which Montmorency receives more than his proportion of fulsome praise.]

[Footnote 534: Relazioni Venete, ii. 175, 176.]

[Footnote 535: De Thou, i. 237, 245.]

[Footnote 536: A contemporary writer (_apud_ De Thou, i. 237, note) pretends to cite the monarch's precise words. The current quatrain was the following:

Le feu roy devina ce poinct,
Que ceux de la maison de Guyse,
Mettroyent ses enfans en pourpoint,
Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.

Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous Francois II., ed. Pantheon lit., p. 261. The lines are given, with a few variations, by almost every history of the times; Recueil des choses memorables, etc., 1565, p. 31; Memoires de Conde, i. 533. De Thou is a firm believer in the truth of the vulgar report (_ubi supra_), and even Davila (Eng. trans. of Sir Charles Cottrell, 1678, p. 7) admits that later events have added much credit to the current belief.]

[Footnote 537: By arrangement with his elder brother Antoine (A. D. 1530), Claude received, as his portion of the paternal estate, four or five considerable seigniories enclosed within the territorial limits of France: _Guise_ on the north, not far from the boundary of the Netherlands; _Aumale_ and _Elbeuf_ in Normandy; _Mayenne_ in Maine, on the borders of Brittany; and _Joinville_, in Champagne, on the northeastern frontier of the kingdom; besides others of minor importance. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine (Nancy, 1752), v. 481, 482.]

[Footnote 538: De Thou draws no flattering sketch of his course: "Le dernier de ces deux prelats avoit eu beaucoup de part aux bonnes graces de Francois I^er, _sans autre merite que de s'etre rendu utile a ses plaisirs_ et d'avoir su se distinguer par une liberalite folle et indiscrete, deux moyens par lesquels il avoit ete assez heureux pour adoucir la juste indignation de ce prince contre son frere, Claude duc de Guise." Hist. univ., i. 523.]

[Footnote 539: Soldan, Gesch. des Protestantismus in Frankreich, i. 214. A still longer list is given by Dom Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, v. 482.]

[Footnote 540: In 1518. Abbe Migne, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux; table chronologique.]

[Footnote 541: Sir John Mason to Council, Feb. 23, 1551. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 542: Memoires de Castlenau, liv. i., c. 1; Migne, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 543: Pasquier, an impartial writer, but somewhat given to panegyric, paints a very flattering portrait of Guise, in a letter written after the death of the duke: "Il fut seigneur fort debonnaire, bien emparle tant en particulier qu'en public, vaillant et magnanime, prompt a la main," etc. Oeuvres choisies, ii. 258.]

[Footnote 544: "Le due de Guyse, grand chef de guerre, et capitaine capable de servir sa patrie, si l'ambition de son frere ne l'eust prevenu et empoisonne. Aussi a-il dict plusieurs fois de luy: Cest homme enfin nous perdra." De l'Aubespine, Hist. part., iii. 286.]

[Footnote 545: "Di dir poche volte il vero. Poco veredico, di natura duplice ed avara, non meno nel suo particolare che nelle cose del re." Suriano regards the cardinal as without a rival in this particular: "Che di saper dissimulare non ha pari al mondo." Tommaseo, i. 526.]

[Footnote 546: Not to speak of the property he obtained by dispossessing the rightful owners, he received, by favor of Diana, on the death of his uncle, Cardinal John, the benefices the latter had enjoyed, with all his personal wealth. Charles now had 300,000 livres of income; but he never thought of paying off his uncle's enormous debts: "Laissa toutes les debtes d'iceluy, qui estoyent immenses, a ses creanciers, _pour y succeder par droit de bangueroute!_" De l'Aubespine, iii. 281. The papal envoy, Cardinal Prospero di Santa Croce, combines the traits of ambition, avarice, and hypocrisy in his portrait of his colleague in the sacred consistory, and makes little of his learning: "Carolus a Lotharingia ... juvenis _non illiteratus_, ac ingenio versuto et callido, _maxime ambitioni et avaritiae dedito_, quae vitia _religionis ac sanctimoniae simulatione obtegere conabatur_." Prosperi Santacrucii de Civilibus Galliae dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a caustic contemporary pamphlet--_Le livre des marchands_ (1565)--should describe him as "ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent egalles entre deux fers." (Ed. Pantheon, p. 423.)]

[Footnote 547: "Non credo fosse in quel regno desiderata alcuna cosa piu che la sua morte." Relaz. di Gio. Michiel, Tommaseo, i. 440. I have united the accounts of two ambassadors, Soranzo and Michiel, the first belonging to 1558, the other to 1561. Both are contained in Tommaseo's edit. of the Relations Venitiens.]

[Footnote 548: Werke, viii. 141.]

[Footnote 549: Brantome, Oeuvres (Ed. of Fr. Hist. Soc.), iv. 275, etc.]

[Footnote 550: "Et seroit a desirer que ceste femme et le cardinal n'eussent jamais este; car ces deux seuls out este les flamesches de nos malheurs." De l'Aubespine, iii. 286. The reader will, after this, make little account of the extravagant panegyric by the Father Alby (inserted by Migne in his Dict. des Card., s. v. Lorraine); yet he may be amused at the precise contradiction between the estimate of the cardinal's political services made by this ecclesiastic and that of the practical statesman given above. He seems to the priest born for the good of others: "ayant pour cela merite de la posterite toutes les louanges d'un homme ne pour le bien des autres, et le titre meme de cardinal de France, qui lui fut donne par quelques ecrivains de son temps." This blundering eulogist makes him to have been assigned by Francis I. as counsellor of his son.]

[Footnote 551: Brantome, Hommes illustres (Oeuvres, viii. 63).]

[Footnote 552: Mem. de Vieilleville, i. 179.]

[Footnote 553: La Planche, 205.]

[Footnote 554: Mem. de Vieilleville, i. 186-189.]

[Footnote 555: "Pour du tout s'asseurer, ils se jetterent du commencement au party de ceste femme; et specialement le cardinal, _qui estoit des plus parfaicts en l'art de courtiser_. Comme tel _il se gehenna_ tellement par l'espace de pres de deux ans, que ne tenant point de table pour sa personne, _il disnoit a la table de Madame_; ainsi estoit-elle appellee par la Royne mesme." L'Aubespine, Hist. particuliere, iii. 281.]

[Footnote 556: "Ne pouvant doresenavant estre aultre mon interest que le vostre. De quoy Dieu soit loue," etc. Letter of the Card. of Lorraine, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., ix. (1860), 216.]

[Footnote 557: De Thou, i. 496. Henry was a _religious_ prince also, according to Dandolo. The ambassador's standard, however, was not a very severe one: "Sua maesta si dimostra religiosa, _non cavalca la domenica, almen la mattina_." Relaz. Venete, ii. 173.]

[Footnote 558: Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i, 43, 44.]

[Footnote 559: Une chambre speciale composee de "dix ou douze conseillers des plus scavants et des plus zeles, pour connoistre du faict d'heresie, sans qu'elle pust vacquer a d'autres affaires." Reg. secr., 17 avril, 1545; Floquet, Hist. du. parl. de Normandie, ii. 241.]