Chapter IX (2)

The savage persecution of the Protestants tended powerfully to strengthen the current of popular sentiment that was setting in against the government of the Guises. The sight of so many cruel executions for more than thirty years had not accustomed either the dissidents or the more reflecting among those of the opposite creed to the barbarous work. "Is it not time," they asked, "to put a stop to the ravages of the flames and of the sword of the executioner, when such signal failure has attended their application? Will the terror of the _estrapade_ quench the burning courage of a sect which has spread over the whole of France, if it could not stifle the fire when first kindled at Meaux and at Paris? Has not the policy of extermination thus far persisted in only accelerating the growth of the new doctrines? Shall the sword rage forever, and must princes of the blood and the noblest and purest in lower ranks of society incur a common fate? Must the persecuted submit with as good grace to the arbitrary decrees of the usurpers who, through their connection with a minor king, have made themselves supreme, as to the legitimate authority of the monarch, advised by his council of state? The Gospel, doubtless, enjoins upon all Christians the most patient submission to legally constituted authority. Its success is to be won by the display of faith and obedience. But concession may degenerate into cowardice, and submission into craven subserviency. Obedience to a tyrant is rebellion against the king whom he defrauds of his authority, his revenues, and his reputation; and treason against God, whose name is suffered to be blasphemed, and whose children are unjustly distressed."

[Sidenote: Oppression becomes intolerable.]

[Sidenote: The convocation of the States General.]

The religious grievances thus ran parallel with the political, and could scarcely be distinguished in the great aggregate of the intolerable oppression to which France was subjected. The legislation of which such grave complaint was made, it must be admitted, was sometimes sufficiently whimsical. The resources of the royal treasury, for instance, being inadequate to meet the demands of creditors, it was necessary to silence their importunity. An inhuman decree was accordingly published, enjoining upon all petitioners who had come to Fontainebleau, where the king was sojourning, to solicit the payment of debts or pensions, to leave the court within twenty-four hours, on pain of the halter! A gallows newly erected in front of the castle was a significant warning as to the serious character of the threat.[803] In order to provide against uprisings such as the violent course taken was well calculated to occasion, the people must be disarmed. Accordingly, an edict was published, within a fortnight after the accession of Francis, strictly forbidding all persons from carrying pistols and other firearms, and the prohibition was more than once repeated during this brief reign.[804] While thus seeking to repress the display of the popular displeasure in acts of violence and sedition, the Guises resolved to prevent the overthrow of their usurped authority by legitimate means. The convocation of the States General was the safety-valve through which, in accordance with a wise provision, the overheated passions of the people were wont to find vent. But the assembling of the representatives of the three orders would be equivalent to signing the death-warrant of the Guises; while to Catharine, the queen mother, it would betoken an equally dreaded termination of long-cherished hopes. Both Catharine and the Guises, therefore, gave out that whoever talked of convening the States was a mortal enemy of the king, and made himself liable to the pains of treason.[805] Every precaution had been taken to make the boiler tight, and to render impossible the escape of the scalding waters and the steam; it only remained to be seen whether the structure was proof against an explosion.

[Sidenote: Calvin and Beza consulted.]

[Sidenote: They dissuade armed resistance.]

[Sidenote: Calvin foresees civil war.]

[Sidenote: More favorable replies.]

Such a catastrophe, indeed, seemed now to be imminent.[806] Among the more restless, especially, there was a manifest preparation for some new enterprise. The correspondence of the reformers reveals the fact that, as early as in the commencement of September, a knotty question had been propounded to the Genevese theologians:[807] "Is it lawful to make an insurrection against those enemies not only of religion, but of the very state, particularly when, according to law, the king himself possesses no authority on which they can rest their usurpation?" This was an interrogatory often put by those who would gladly have followed the example of a Scaevola, and sacrificed their own lives to purchase freedom for France. "Hitherto," notes Beza, "we have answered that the storm must be overcome by prayer and by patience, and that He will not desert us who lately showed by so wonderful an example (the death of Henry) not only what He can, but what He will do for His church. Until now this advice has been followed."[808] As the plan for a forcible overthrow of the Guises began to develop under the increasing oppression, and as malcontents from France came to the free city on Lake Leman in greater numbers, Calvin expressed his convictions with more and more distinctness, and endeavored to dissuade the refugees from embarking in so hazardous an undertaking. Its advocates in vain urged that they had received from a prince of the blood (entitled, by the immemorial custom of the realm, to the first place in the council, in the absence of his brother, the King of Navarre) the promise to present their confession of faith to the young monarch of France, and that thousands would espouse his defence if he were assailed. The reformer saw more clearly than they the rising of the clouds of civil war portending ruin to his native land. "Let but a single drop of blood be shed," said Calvin, "and streams will flow that must inundate France."[809] But his prudent advice was unheeded. Other theologians and jurists of France and Germany had been questioned. They replied more favorably, "It is lawful," they said, "to take up arms to repel the violence of the Guises, under the authority of a prince of the blood, and at the solicitation of the estates of France, or the soundest part of them. Having seized the persons of the obnoxious ministers, it will next be proper to assemble the States General, and put them on trial for their flagrant offences."[810]

[Sidenote: Godefroy de la Renaudie.]

[Sidenote: His grounds for revenge.]

An active and energetic man was needed to organize the movement and control it until the proper moment should come for Conde--the "mute" head, whose name was for the time to be kept secret--to declare himself. Such a leader was found in Godefroy de Barry, Seigneur de la Renaudie, a gentleman of ancient family in Perigord. The result justified the wisdom of the choice. Besides the discontent animating him in common with the better part of the kingdom, La Renaudie had private wrongs of his own to avenge. Less than a year before the accession of Francis, his brother-in-law, Gaspard de Heu, had been arrested as a pretended agent for bringing about an alliance between the King of Navarre and the Protestant princes of Germany.[811] In the gloomy castle of the Bois de Vincennes a private trial had been held, in which none of the accustomed forms of law were observed. De Heu had been barbarously tortured and secretly despatched.[812] That it was a judicial murder was proved by the extraordinary precautions taken to conceal the procedure from the knowledge of the public, and by the selection of the most lonely place about the castle for the grave into which his official assassins hastily thrust the body.[813] La Renaudie held the Cardinal of Lorraine to be the author of the cowardly deed.[814]

[Sidenote: He assembles the malcontents at Nantes, Feb. 1, 1560.]

[Sidenote: Well-devised plans.]

La Renaudie displayed incredible diligence.[815] In a few days he had travelled over a great part of France, visiting all the most prominent opponents of the Guises, urging the reluctant, assuring the timid, inciting all to a determined effort. On the first of February he assembled in the city of Nantes a large number of noblemen and of persons belonging to the "tiers etat," who claimed to be as complete a representation of the estates of France as the circumstances of the country would admit. It was a hazardous undertaking; but so prudently did the deputies deport themselves, that, although the Parliament of Brittany was then sitting at Nantes, they were not detected in the crowd of pleaders before the court. After solemnly protesting that the enterprise was directed neither against the majesty of the king and of the princes of the blood, nor against the legitimate estate of the kingdom, the assembly was intrusted with the secret of the name of the prince by whose authority the arrest of the Guises was to be attempted. The tenth of March[816] was fixed upon for the execution of the design. At that date, it was supposed, Francis and his court would be sojourning on the banks of the Loire.[817] Five hundred gentlemen were selected, and placed under the command of ten captains. All were to obey the directions of the "mute" chief, and his delegate, La Renaudie. Others of the confederates were pledged to prevent the provincial towns from sending assistance to the Guises. The force thus raised was to be disbanded only when a legitimate government had been re-established, and the usurpers brought to punishment.[818]

[Sidenote: Confidence of the Guises.]

The plan was well devised, and its execution was entrusted to capable hands. The omens, indeed, were favorable. The Cardinal of Lorraine and his brother, intoxicated by the uniform success hitherto attending their ambitious projects, despised such vague rumors of opposition as reached their ears. The party adverse to their tyranny, composed not only of Protestants and others who sought the best interests of their country, but recruited from the ranks of the restless and of those who had private wrongs to redress, was sure, on the first tidings of its uprising, to secure the active co-operation of many of the most powerful nobles, and possibly might enlist the majority of the population. Rarely has an important secret been so long and so successfully kept. It was deemed little short of a miracle that, in a time of peace, and in a country where the regal authority was so implicitly obeyed, a deliberative assembly of no mean size had been convened from all the provinces of France, and the Guises had obtained intimations of the conspiracy of their enemies by letters from Germany, Spain, and Italy, before any tidings of it reached the ears of their spies carefully posted in every part of the kingdom. So close a reticence augured ill for the permanence of the present usurpation.[819]

[Sidenote: The plot betrayed.]

But the timidity or treachery of a single person disconcerted all the steps so cautiously taken. The curiosity of Des Avenelles, a lawyer at Paris, in whose house La Renaudie lodged, was excited by the number of the visitors whom his guest attracted. As his host was a Protestant, La Renaudie believed that he risked nothing in making of him a confidant. But the secret was too valuable, or too dangerous, to be kept, and Des Avenelles secured his safety, as well as a liberal reward, by disclosing it to two dependants of the Guises, by whom it was faithfully reported to their masters.[820] The astounding information was at first received with incredulity, but soon a second witness was obtained. It could no longer be doubted that the blow of the approach of which letters from abroad, and especially from Cardinal Granvelle, in Flanders,[821] had warned them, was about to descend upon their heads.

[Sidenote: The "Tumult of Amboise."]

When fuller revelations of the extent of the plot were made, the court in consternation shut itself up in the defences of Amboise. Catharine de' Medici, recalling the warning of the Church of Paris, declared that now she saw that the Protestants were men of their word.[822]

[Sidenote: The Chatillons consulted.]

[Sidenote: Coligny gives Catharine good advice.]

Meanwhile, not only were vigorous measures adopted to guard against attack, but the most powerful nobles, who might be suspected of complicity, were sounded respecting their intentions. Coligny and his brother, D'Andelot, who, in virtue of their offices as Admiral and Colonel-General of the infantry, stood at the head of the army, received affectionate invitations from Catharine to visit the court. Upon their arrival they were taken apart, and were earnestly entreated by the queen mother and Chancellor Olivier to assist them by their counsel, and not to abandon the young king. To so urgent a request Coligny made a frank reply. He explained the existing discontent and its causes, both religious and political. Persecution, and the usurpation of those who were esteemed foreigners by the French, lay at the root of the troubles. He advised the relaxation of the rigorous treatment of the adherents of the Reformation. _Extermination_ was out of the question. The numbers of the Protestants had become too great to permit the entertaining of such a thought. Moreover, the court might be assured that there were those--and they were not few--who would no longer consent to endure the cruelty to which, for forty years, they had been subjected, especially now that it was exercised under the authority of a young king governed by persons "more hated than the plague," and known to be inspired less by religious zeal than by excessive ambition, and by an avarice that could be satisfied only by obtaining the property of the richest houses in France. An edict of toleration, couched in explicit terms and honestly executed, was the only remedy to restore peace and quiet until the convocation of a free and holy council.[823]

[Sidenote: The edict of amnesty March, 1560.]

[Sidenote: It is promptly registered.]

The privy council, if not persuaded of the propriety of initiating a policy of toleration, were at least convinced of the necessity of yielding temporarily to the storm; and even the Guises deemed it advisable to make concessions, which could easily be revoked on the advent of more peaceful times. Accordingly, an edict of pretended amnesty was hastily drawn up, and as expeditiously published. The king was moved to take this step--so the edict made him say--by compassion for the number of persons who, from motives of curiosity or simplicity, had attended the conventicles of the preachers from Geneva--for the most part mechanical folk and of no literary attainments--as well as by reluctance to render the first year of his reign notable in after times for the effusion of the blood of his poor subjects. By the provisions of this important instrument the royal judges were forbidden to make inquisition into, or inflict punishment for any _past_ crime concerning the faith: and all delinquents were pardoned _on condition that they should hereafter live as good Catholics and obedient sons of Mother Holy Church_. But from the benefits of the amnesty were expressly excluded all preachers and those who had conspired against the person of the king or his ministers.[824] The edict--much to the surprise of those who knew the sanguinary disposition of the judges--was promptly registered by parliament; whether it was that the judges were reconciled to the step by a secret article with which, it was said, they accompanied it, to guide in the future interpretation of the law, or that the majority regarded it as a piece of deceit.[825]

[Sidenote: A year's progress.]

[Sidenote: Beza's comment.]

In spite of its insincerity, however, the edict, wrung from the unwilling hands of the cardinal and the privy council, marks an important epoch in the history of the Reformed Church in France. Barely nine months had elapsed since five members of the Parisian Parliament had been thrown into the Bastile for daring to advocate a mitigation of the penalties pronounced against the Protestants, until the assembling of the long-promised Oecumenical Council. Little more than two months had passed since one of their number, and the most virtuous judge on the bench, had been ignominiously executed. And now the King of France, with the approval and almost at the instigation of the chief persecutor, proclaimed an oblivion of all offences against religion, and the liberation of all persons imprisoned for heresy. The reformers, who had rarely succeeded by their most strenuous exertions in obtaining the release of a few of their co-religionists, could scarcely restrain a smile when they discovered what a potent auxiliary they had obtained unawares--in the _fears_ of their antagonists. "Would that you could read and understand the number of contradictory edicts they have written in a single month!" wrote one who took a deep interest in French affairs. "You would assuredly be amazed at their incredible fright, when no one is pursuing them, except Him whom they least fear! What you could not succeed in obtaining by any of your embassies in former years, they have given of their own accord to those who sought it not--the liberation of the entire number of prisoners on all sides. Most have been released in spite of their open profession of their faith. The injustice of the judges has, however, led to the retention of a few in chains up to this moment."[826]

[Sidenote: A powerful party had arisen.]

Notwithstanding its incompleteness and insincerity, however, "the Edict of Forgiveness," as it was termed, is a significant landmark in the history of French Protestantism. It is the point where begins the transition from the period of persecution to the period of civil war. By this concession, reluctantly granted and faithlessly executed, the first recognition was made of the existence of a large and powerful body of dissidents from the Roman Catholic Church. No longer were there a few scattered sectaries whose heretical views might be suppressed by their individual extermination. But a compact and wide-spread and rapidly growing party had assumed dimensions that defied any such paltry measures. It had outgrown persecution. The time for its eradication by open war or by secret massacre might yet come. Meanwhile, it was important to avert present disaster by partial concessions.

[Sidenote: Dismay of the court.]

[Sidenote: New alarms.]

The treachery of Des Avenelles had warned the Guises of their danger, but had left them in dismay and doubt. They knew not whom to trust, nor whence to expect the impending blow. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton's correspondence is full of interesting details throwing light upon the confusion and embarrassment of the Guises. "You shall understand," he writes on the seventh of March, "that the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine have discovered a conspiracy wrought against themselves and their authority, which they have bruited (to make the matter more odious) to be meant only against the king: whereupon they are in such fear as themselves do wear privy coats, and are in the night guarded with pistoliers and men in arms. They have apprehended eight or nine, and have put some to the torture." "Being ready to seal up this letter," he adds in a postscript, "I do understand that the fear of this commotion is so great, as the sixth of this present, the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Grand Prior, and all the knights of the Order which were here, watched all night long in the court, and the gates of this town were all shut and kept." On the fifteenth of March he writes: "These men here have their hands full, and are so busied to provide for surety at home, that they cannot intend to answer foreigners. This night a new hot alarm is offered, and our town doth begin again to be guarded. It is a marvel to see how they be daunted, that have not at other times been afraid of great armies of horsemen, footmen, and the fury of shot of artillery: I never saw state more amazed than this at some time, and by and by more reckless; they know not whom to mistrust, nor to trust.... He hath all the trust this daye, that to-morrow is least trusted. You can imagine your advantage." A few days later he writes again: "And now it was thought that this was but a popular commotion, without order, and not to be feared; when, unlooked for, the 17th, in the morning, about four of the clock, there arrived a company of 150 horsemen well appointed, who approached the court gates, and shot off their pistolets at the church of the Bonhommes, whereupon there was such an alarm and running up and down in the court, as if the enemies being encamped about them had sought to make an entry into the castle: and there was crying, _To horse, to horse_.... This continued an hour and a half,"[827] etc.

La Renaudie had actually established himself within six leagues of Amboise on the second of March, and had made his arrangements for the vigorous execution of his plans a fortnight later. The Guises were to be seized by a party that counted upon gaining secret admission to the castle, and opening the gates to comrades concealed in the neighborhood. But another act of treachery on the part of a confederate enabled the cardinal and his brother to frustrate a project so sagaciously laid and offering fair promise of success. The parties of cavaliers, who had succeeded, as by a miracle, in eluding the spies and agents of their enemies, posted in every important city of France, and had reached the very vicinity of the court without discovery, were caught in detail at their rendezvous. Companies of fifteen or twenty men thus fell into the hands of the troops hastily assembled by the urgent commands of the king's ministers.

[Sidenote: Treacherous capture of Castelnau.]

[Sidenote: Death of La Renaudie.]

A more powerful detachment of malcontents could not be so easily stopped, and threw itself into the castle of Noizay. It seemed more feasible to overcome them by stratagem than by open assault. The Duke of Nemours, having been sent to reduce the place, allowed Baron de Castelnau, commander of the insurgents, a personal interview. Here the Huguenot defended his adherents against the imputation of having revolted against their lawful monarch, and maintained that, on the contrary, they had come to uphold his honor and free him from the intrigues of the Guises. Seeing, however, the hopelessness of resisting the superior force of his enemy, Castelnau consented to capitulate, after exacting from the Duke of Nemours his princely word that he and his followers should receive no injury, and be permitted to have free access to the king, in order to lay before him their grievances. The pledge thus given was redeemed in no chivalrous manner. No account was made of the terms accepted. Castelnau and his companions-in-arms were at once thrown into the dungeons of Amboise, and steps were taken for their trial on a charge of treason.[828] Much larger numbers, arriving in the vicinity of Amboise ignorant of what had happened, were surrounded by cavalry and brought in tied to the horses' tails. Many a knight, better accoutred than his fellows, was despatched in a more summary manner and stripped of his armor, after which his body was carelessly thrown into a ditch by the roadside.[829] La Renaudie was so fortunate as to escape this fate and the yet more cruel doom that awaited him at Amboise, by meeting a soldier's death, while courageously fighting against a party of Guisards who fell in with him. He had just slain his antagonist--one Pardaillan, his own relative--when (on the nineteenth of March) he was himself instantly killed by the ball from an arquebuse fired by his opponent's servant.[830]

[Sidenote: Plenary powers given to the Duke of Guise.]

While the alarm arising from the "tumult" was yet at its height, the Guises took advantage of it to obtain yet larger powers, at the same time securing their position against future assaults. The king, in his terror, was readily induced to accept the warlike uncle of his wife as the only person on whose military prowess and faithfulness he could rely. He regarded the interest of the Guises and his own as identical; for he had been told, and he firmly believed it, that the enmity of the insurgents was directed no less against the crown than against its unpopular ministers.[831] On the seventeenth of March he therefore gave a commission to "Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, peer, grand master, and grand chamberlain," to be his lieutenant-general with absolute powers, promising to approve of all his acts, and authorizing him to impose the customary punishment upon the seditious, without form or figure of process.[832]

[Sidenote: Chancellor Olivier opposes.]

[Sidenote: Forgiveness to the submissive.]

There were those about the monarch who could not but look with concern upon the unlimited authority thus accorded to an ambitious prince. Chancellor Olivier was of this number. He at first refused to affix the seal of state to a paper which falsely purported to have been made by advice of the council. It was, however, at length decided that another edict should be published contemporaneously, extending forgiveness to all that had assembled in arms in the neighborhood of the city of Amboise, under color of desiring to present to the king a confession of their faith. To avail themselves of the benefits of this pardon, they must, within "twice twenty-four hours," return to their homes, in companies of two, or, at the most, three together. The disobedient were to be hung without process of law, and the tocsin might be rung to gather a force for the purpose of capturing them. The king, however, invited all that desired to present him their requests to depute one of their number to lay them before his council, promising, on the pledge of his royal word, redress and security.[833]

[Sidenote: Explained away by a new edict.]

The acts of the court little agreed with these words of clemency. Many of those who, in obedience to the edict, turned their steps homeward, found that edict to be only a snare for their simplicity. Indeed, five days only had elapsed when, on the twenty-second of March, a fresh edict, explanatory of the former, excluded from the amnesty all that had taken part in the conspiracy![834]

[Sidenote: Carnival of blood.]

[Sidenote: The young king visibly affected.]

But it was at Amboise that the vengeance of the Guises found its widest scope. Day and night the execution of the prisoners stayed not. Their punishment was ingeniously diversified. Some were decapitated, others hung; still others were drowned in the waters of the Loire.[835] The streets of Amboise ran with blood, and the stench of the unburied corpses threatened a pestilence. Ten or twelve dead bodies, in full clothing and tied to a single pole, floated down from time to time toward the sea, and carried tidings of the wholesale massacre to the cities on the lower Loire. Neither trial nor publication of the charge preceded the summary execution. Most frequently the victims were placed in the hangman's hand immediately after the hour for dinner, that their dying agonies might furnish an agreeable diversion to the ladies of the court, who watched the gibbet from the royal drawing-rooms. Few, besides the Duchess of Guise, daughter of Renee of Ferrara, manifested any disgust at the repulsive spectacle. Some of the prisoners who importunately insisted on seeing the king, and making before him a profession of their faith, were summarily hanged from the castle windows. One intrepid reformer had been so fortunate as to be admitted to the queen mother's presence, and there, by his ready and cogent reasoning, had well-nigh brought the Cardinal of Lorraine to admit that his view of the Lord's Supper was correct. Catharine's attention having been for a moment withdrawn, when she returned to the discussion the man had disappeared. Actuated by curiosity or by a desire to spare his life, she requested him to be sent for. It was too late; he had already been despatched.[836] For the most part, the victims displayed great constancy and courage. Many died with the words of the psalms of Marot and Beza on their lips.[837] Castelnau, after having in his interrogatory made patent to all the hypocrisy of the cardinal and the cowardice of the chancellor, died maintaining that, before he was pronounced guilty of treason, the Guises ought to be declared kings of France. Villemongys, upon the scaffold, dipped his hands in the blood of his companions, and, raising them toward heaven, exclaimed in a loud voice: "Lord, this is the blood of Thy children, unjustly shed. Thou wilt avenge it!"[838] The body of La Renaudie was first hung upon one of the bridges of Amboise, with the superscription: "_La Renaudie, styling himself Laforest, author of the conspiracy, chief and leader of the rebels_." Afterward it was quartered, and his head, in company with the heads of others, was exposed upon a pole on a public square.[839] The sight of these continually recurring executions, succeeding a fearful struggle in which so many of his subjects had taken part, is said to have affected even the young king, who asked, with tears, what he had done to his people to animate them thus against him. It is even reported that, catching for an instant, through the mist with which his advisers sought to keep his mind enshrouded, a glimpse of the true cause of the discontent, he made a feeble suggestion, which was easily parried, that the Guises should for a time retire from the court, in order that he might find out whether the popular enmity was in reality directed against him, or against his uncles.[840] Their fertile invention, however, was not slow in concocting a story that turned his short-lived pity into settled hatred of the "Huguenot heretics."

[Sidenote: The elder D'Aubigne and his son.]

On others, and especially upon those whose hearts throbbed with patriotic devotion, a less transient impression was made. Some months after, the young Agrippa d'Aubigne, then a mere child of ten years, was traversing the city of Amboise with his father. The impaled heads of the victims were still to be recognized. The barbarous sight moved the elder D'Aubigne's soul to its very depths. "They have beheaded France, hangmen that they are!" he cried out in the hearing of the hundreds that were present at the fair. Then, spurring his horse, he scarcely escaped the hands of the rabble who had caught his words. Afterward, when his young son had rejoined him, he placed his hand on Agrippa's head, and exclaimed, full of emotion: "My child, you must not spare your head after mine, to avenge these chieftains full of honor, whose heads you have just seen! If you spare yourself in this matter, you will have my curse."[841]

[Sidenote: Peril of the Prince of Conde.]

[Sidenote: He is summoned by the king.]

[Sidenote: Conde's defiance.]

[Sidenote: Guise's offer.]

The Prince of Conde had set out for the court about the time of the discovery of the conspiracy. If the coldness of the courtiers whom he met on the way did not convince him that he was suspected, the position in which he soon found himself at Amboise left him no doubts. Surrounded by spies, he was viewed more as a prisoner than as a guest. The Guises even counselled Francis to stab him with his dagger while pretending to sport with him. The crime was averted both by the caution of the prince and by a reluctance on the part of the young king to imbrue his hands in the blood of his kinsman--a sentiment which the Guises interpreted as cowardice.[842] But, unable to resist the urgency of those who accused Conde of being the true head of the conspiracy, and maintained that the testimony of many of the prisoners rendered the fact indubitable, Francis at length summoned the young Bourbon to his presence. He informed him of the accusations, and assured him that, should they prove true, he would make him feel the difficulty and the danger of attacking a king of France. At Conde's request an assembly of all the princes, and of the members of the Privy Council and of the Order of St. Michael, was summoned, that he might return his answer to the charges laid against him.[843] In the midst of the august gathering, Louis of Bourbon arose and recited the conversation which he had had with the king. He knew, he said, that he had enemies about him who sought his entire ruin and that of his house. He had, therefore, solicited to be heard in this company, and his answer was: that, excepting the person of the king, his brothers, and the queens, his mother and wife--and he said it with all respect to their presence--whoever had asserted to the king that Conde was the chief of certain seditious individuals who were said to have conspired against his person and estate, had "falsely and miserably lied." To prove his innocence he offered to waive for the time the privileges of his rank as prince of the blood, and in single combat force his accuser at the point of the sword to confess himself a poltroon and a calumniator. As Conde looked proudly around, no one ventured to accept the gauntlet he had thrown down. On the contrary, the Duke of Guise, his most bitter enemy, promptly stepped forward to offer him his services as second in the single combat proposed! Hereupon Conde begged the king to esteem him hereafter a faithful and honorable man, and entreated his Majesty to lend no ear to the authors of such calumnies, but to regard them as common enemies of the crown and of the public peace.[844]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An alleged admission of disloyal intentions by La
Renaudie.]

It is well known that the Huguenots were accused by their enemies
of intending to remodel the government of France. According to
some, the king was to be retained, but shorn of his authority;
according to others, he was to be dispensed with altogether. Under
any circumstances, the Swiss confederation was to be imitated or
reproduced in France. That which gave the pretended scheme most of
its air of probability, in the eyes of the unreflecting, and
compensated for the entire absence of proof of its substantial
reality, was the familiarity of many of the Huguenots--both
religious and political--with Geneva, Basle, Berne, and other small
republican states. These were fountains of Protestant doctrine;
these had afforded many a refugee shelter from persecution in
France. It was notorious that the free institutions of these cities
were the object of admiration on the part of the Calvinists.[845]

I believe that no contemporary writer has brought forward a
particle of evidence in support of this view, and impartial men
have rejected it as incredible. But a history of the Parliament of
Bordeaux, lately published,[846] contains an extract from the
records of that court, which, if trustworthy, would go far to
establish the reality of treasonable designs entertained by the
Huguenots. Under date of Sept. 4, 1561, the following entry
appears:

"Ledit jour, M. Geraut Faure, official de Perigueux, a dit: qu'il y
a deux ans que le feu _Sieur de La Renaudie_ fust a la maison dudit
official, a Nontron, lui dire _que c'estoit grande folie qu'un tel
royaume fust gouverne par un roi seul_, et que si l'official
vouloit l'entendre, qu'il lui feroit un grand avantage; car _on
deliberoit de faire un canton a Perigueux, et un autre a Bordeaux_
dont il esperoit avoir la superintendance. Et lors luy tenant de
tels propos, retira a part ledit official sans qu'autre
l'entendist. Ainsi signe: Faure."

The late M. Boscheron des Portes, giving full credit to the
assertion of the "official" of Perigueux, believed that the party
of which La Renaudie was a prominent leader contemplated, in
1559-1560, the formation of "a federative republic broken up into
cantons, the number and situation of which were already, it would
appear, determined upon by the authors of the project." And he
deplores the blind sectarian spirit which could induce Frenchmen to
acquiesce in a plan designed to destroy the unity and consequent
power of a realm whose consolidation every successive king since
the origin of the monarchy had unceasingly pursued.

I imagine that few unbiassed minds will follow this usually
judicious historian in his singularly precipitate acceptance of the
"official's" statement. It is in patent contradiction with
well-known facts respecting the constitution of the Huguenot party.
The noblemen who gave this party their support had everything to
lose, and nothing to gain, by the change from a monarchical to a
republican form of government. Conde, the "chef muet," was a prince
of the blood, not so far removed from the throne as to regard it
altogether impossible that he or his children might yet succeed to
the crown. The main body of the party had had no reason to
entertain hostility to regal authority. The prevailing discontent
was not directed against the young king, but against the persons
surrounding him who had illegally usurped his name and the real
functions of royalty. If persecution for religion's sake had long
raged, the victims had never uttered a syllable smacking of
disloyalty, and continued to hope, not without some apparent
reason, that the truth might yet reach the heart of kings.

But, independently of the gross inconsistency between the design
ascribed to La Renaudie and the known sentiments of the Huguenots
at this time, there are other marks of improbability connected with
the statement of Geraut Faure. It was not made at the time of the
pretended disclosure, or shortly after, when, if genuine, it would
have insured the informer favor and reward; but, after the lapse of
"two years," when Francis the Second had been dead nine months, and
when under a new king fresh political issues had arisen. In fact,
if the term of two years be construed strictly, it carries us back
to September, 1559, when Francis the Second had been barely three
months on the throne, and the plans of the Huguenots had, to all
appearance, by no means had time to assume the completeness implied
in Faure's statement. Not to speak of the great vagueness and the
utter absence of circumstantial details in the announcement of the
conspiracy and in the promised advantages, it should be remarked
that the confidant selected by La Renaudie was a very unlikely
person to be chosen. The "official," an ecclesiastical judge
deputed by the Bishop of Perigueux to take charge of spiritual
jurisdiction in his diocese, could scarcely be regarded by La
Renaudie as the safest depositary of so valuable a trust.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 729: Davila, p. 20.]

[Footnote 730: "Lancea sanctorum tunc inopina salus." Epigram _apud_ Le Laboureur, Additions aux mem. de Castelnau, i. 276.]

[Footnote 731:

Sic cruce detractum fixit tua lancea Christum,
Per latus illorum quos sua membra vocat.
At Deus omnipotens, Christi justissimus ultor,
Sanguine, dixit, erit lancea tincta tuo. _Ib._, _ubi supra_.
]

[Footnote 732: "O que si ce bon roy eusse vescu," says Montluc, "ou si ceste paix ne se fust faite, qu'il eust bien rembarre les Lutheriens en Allemagne." Memoires, Petitot ed., ii. 483.]

[Footnote 733: Davila, Civil Wars of France, p. 6. Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, Recueil des choses memorables, _in initio_; Mem. de Conde, i. 320.]

[Footnote 734: Yet Catharine herself, in a letter written in 1563 to her son Charles IX., just after he had declared himself to be of age, admits the full truth of her opponents' assertion, that Francis II. was a minor!--"que l'on cognoisse les desordres qui out este jusques icy _par la minorite du Roy vostre frere_, qui empeschoit que l'on ne pouvoit faire ce que l'on desiroit." Avis donnez par Catherine de Medicis a Charles IX., pour la police de sa cour, etc., printed in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, v. 245-254.]

[Footnote 735: "Di natura benignissima, e cerca di gratificare ciascuno, e massime gl' Italiani quanto piu gli e possibile, ed e tanto amato, non solamente da tutta la corte, ma da tutto il regno che e cosa incredibile." Rel. del clar^mo Giovanni Soranzo, 1558, Relaz. Ven., ii. 429, 430.]

[Footnote 736: "La Royne mere, ambitieuse et craintive." Mem. de Tavannes, ii. 256.]

[Footnote 737: Relaz. di Giovanni Michiel (1561), Tommaseo, i. 426.]

[Footnote 738: La Planche, 204, 205: "The Duchesse of Valentinoys and Duches of Buillon are commaunded, that neither they nor any of theirs shall resort to the courte.... The yong Frenche Quene hath sent to the Duches of Valentinoys, to make accompt of the French King's cabenet and of all his jewels." Throkmorton to Queen, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 158, 159.]

[Footnote 739: Regnier de la Planche, p. 203: "Lequel (Henry) ... avoit entierement resolu, apres avoir acheve ces mariages, et renvoye les estrangers, de les dechasser arriere de soy, comme une peste de son royaume." So Hist. eccles., liv. iii. I can scarcely agree with De Thou (ii., 681, liv. xxiii.) in supposing Catharine deceived in the character of the Guises: "Comme elle ne connoissoit pas encore le caractere de ces Princes, elle crut qu'ils se soumettroient en tout a ses volontes," etc. This statement does injustice to the perspicacity of Catharine, who for so many years had been quietly, but none the less carefully, studying these courtiers and all others that figured on the stage of French politics. La Planche, with his usual acumen, makes much of the advantage which this circumstance conferred upon her (_ubi supra_): "La royne mere, italienne, florentine, et de la race des Medicis, et qui plus est, ayant depuis vingt-deux ans [rather, for twenty-five years] eu tout loisir de considerer les humeurs et facons de toutes ces gens, regardoit ce jeu, et sceut si bien empoigner l'occasion, qu'elle gaigna finalement la partie."]

[Footnote 740: For a full and not uninteresting account of the obsequies, see the pamphlet already referred to: "Le Trespas et l'Ordre des obseques," etc. Paris, 1559. Reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, iii. 307, etc.]

[Footnote 741: Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous Francois II., 206. "The French King," wrote Throkmorton to his royal mistress, "alredy hathe geven him (the constable) to understande, that the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise shal manage his hole affairs." Throkmorton to the Queen, July 18, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 166.]

[Footnote 742: "Ut re vera sit conestabilis." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, _apud_ Baum, ii. App. 1. The _title_ of constable was for life. Of the tenure of the office, the memoirs of Vieilleville make Henry II. say: "Vous scavez que les estats de connestable, mareschaux et chancelliers de France sont totalement _collez et cousus_ a la teste de ceulx qui en sont honnorez, que l'on ne peut arracher l'un sans l'autre." Mem., i. 207.]

[Footnote 743: Huguenot and papist agreed in this, if they could agree in nothing else. "Guisiani fratres," said Beza, "ita inter se regnum sunt partiti ut regi nihil praeter inane nomen sit relictum." Beza, _ubi supra_. Cardinal Santa Croce used almost the same expression: "Eo devenerat ut regi solum nomen reliquisse, alia omnia sibi sumsisse videretur." Commentarii, v. 1440.]

[Footnote 744: The poor fellow's wit was recompensed with a public flogging. The incident is told in the recently published Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 37. It need scarcely be said that the _Crescent_ referred to Diana of Poitiers.]

[Footnote 745: "Nam cum ... regem de more salutatum venisset ... Lotharingii suasu ne respicere hominem voluit." Santa Croce, Comment., v. 1439.]

[Footnote 746: La Planche, 206.]

[Footnote 747: In a remark which he was accused of once making to Henry II., "that he was surprised that the king had no child resembling him, save his illegitimate, but acknowledged daughter, Diana, married to the constable's son!" La Planche, 204, 207; De Thou, ii. 685.]

[Footnote 748: Blaise de Montluc, a trusty agent, kept Guise well posted respecting the King of Navarre's words and disposition. "Encores que M. le Connestable luy ayt escript plusieurs lettres, neantmoins il m'a toujours dict qu'il ne se fieroit jamais de luy, ayant bien cogneu que ce semblant d'amitie qu'il luy portoit n'estoit que pour l'attirer de son coste, affin de ruiner ses cousins," etc. Instruction donnee par le seign. de Montluc a M. de la Tour, 22 juillet, 1559, Mem. de Conde, i. 307; Mem. de Guise, 450.]

[Footnote 749: The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another house which the said constable had but lately built, called Ecouen, which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).]

[Footnote 750: See the _Livre des marchands_, Paris, 1565, ascribed to Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic history of this reign (Ed. Pantheon litt., 429, 453, _et passim_).]

[Footnote 751: De la Planche, 207.]

[Footnote 752: De la Planche, p. 208.]

[Footnote 753: Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.]

[Footnote 754: La Planche, p. 208; Tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_; Languet, Epist. secretae, ii. p. 2.]

[Footnote 755: La Planche, p. 212; La Place, 26; De Thou, ii. 684.]

[Footnote 756: "Rex Navarrorum animum in corpore virili gerit muliebrem." J. C. Portanus, Oct. 30, 1559, Languet, Epist. secretae, ii. 4.]

[Footnote 757: The Bishop of Mende was to become a member of the privy council; D'Escars to be made a knight of the order of St. Michael, and to command fifty men-at-arms. La Planche, 213.]

[Footnote 758: The Guises did not fail, however, to take precautions against a surprise. If Throkmorton was well informed, the duke had "caused two thousand corselets to be laid up in the house of Burbone (Bourbon), nere to the court, to serve in case of innovacion; if that any such matter shuld happen upon the arrivall of the King of Navarre." Desp. of Aug. 8, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 194.]

[Footnote 759: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 760: Idem, 213, 214.]

[Footnote 761: Throkmorton to the queen, Aug. 15, 1559, Forbes, i. 202.]

[Footnote 762: "Qu'il n'est point petit compagnon en France."]

[Footnote 763: Instruction of Montluc to La Tour, already cited, Mem. de Guise, 450.]

[Footnote 764: Antoine did, indeed, continue his protestations of his firm intention "not to fail to do the best he could to advance God's true religion and cause." He made secret appointments with the English ambassador, at one time about eleven o'clock at night, near the abbey of St. Denis, at another time in disguise in the cloisters of the Augustinian friars, and had much to say about his satisfaction "that he had so good a colleague" as Elizabeth "in so good a cause." But the diplomatic correspondence does not show a single step which Navarre ever ventured to take in behalf of that "good cause." See Throkmorton's despatch of Aug. 25th, Forbes, State Papers, i. 213, 214.]

[Footnote 765: "Navarrus ad quem jure ipso et more majorum hactenus inviolata pertinebat regni administratio, quamvis a plerisque Ecclesiis salutatus et rogatus ne tam praeclaram et divinitus oblatam occasionem negligeret, quamvis summo et aperto ludibrio a Guisianis exceptus, tamen omnibus annuit et suo exemplo confirmavit Christi dictum; Difficile est divitem ingredi in regnum coelorum." Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, _apud_ Baum, ii., App., 1, 2; La Place, 27; La Planche, 213-216; De Thou, ii. 686, 687.]

[Footnote 766: Held Sept. 18th. See a description in Forbes, State Papers, i. 232. Navarre, as one of the six temporal peers, represented the Duke of Burgundy; Guise represented the Duke of Normandy; Nevers, the Duke of Guyenne, etc.]

[Footnote 767: La Planche, 218; De Thou, ii. 688. That the promise of assistance was only given in order to frighten Navarre was patent to all who were cognizant of Philip's projected African campaign.]

[Footnote 768: De Thou (ii. 722, 723) gives an account apparently correct, save in one or two particulars, of these two missions. The slavish letter of Antoine to D'Audoz or D'Odoux, as De Thou writes the name of the second messenger, may be read in the Negociations relatives au regne de Francois II. (drawn from the papers of the Bishop of Limoges, French ambassador to Philip, and published by the French government, under the editorial care of M. Paris, 1841), pp. 164-166. Compare Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 91.]

[Footnote 769: La Planche, 209.]

[Footnote 770: Throkmorton to Cecil, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 161.]

[Footnote 771: La Planche, 221; Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559, Baum, ii., App., 3.]

[Footnote 772: La Planche, 221; Mem. de Castelnau (Eng. tr. of 1724, p. 23), bk. i. c. 5; Declarations of Sept. 4th and Nov. 14, 1559, in the Memoires de Guise, 450, 451. These declarations were registered by parliament, with the proviso that no house should be razed unless the owners were privy to the crime or guilty of inexcusable negligence. Memoires de Conde, i, 310.]

[Footnote 773: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 774: Arret du parlement, of September 6, 1559, in Memoires de Conde, i. 308, 309.]

[Footnote 775: In August there were nineteen Protestants in Parisian dungeons, sentenced to be executed for heresy, some in one place, some in another. A man and a woman were rescued, on the twenty-first of this month, while on their way to execution at Meaux. Forbes, State Papers, i. 211, 212.]

[Footnote 776: La Planche, 221, 223; Hist. eccles., i. 144--147, where the account is taken word for word from La Planche; De Thou, ii. 691, 692; Felibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1069; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. i., c. 4.]

[Footnote 777: "La royne Catherine de Medicis, florentine, nation desireuse de nouvellete ... haissoit, comme belle mere, la Royne sa fille, qui l'esloignoit des affaires et portoit l'amitie du Roy son fils a MM. de Guise, lesquels ne luy deportoient du gouvernement qu'en ce qu'ils cognoissoient qu'elle ne pouvoit nuire, luy donnant credit en apparence sans effect," Mem. de Tavannes, ii. 260.]

[Footnote 778: La Planche, 211; Hist. eccles., i. 141, seq.; Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 12, 1559; Baum, ii., App., 3.]

[Footnote 779:

"Vers l'Eternel, des oppresses le pere,
Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropere
Que l'on me fait; et luy feray priere," etc.
]

[Footnote 780: "Coppie de lettres envoyees a la Royne Mere par un sien serviteur apres la mort du feu Roy Henri deuxieme." Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 349, etc. The substance of Villemadon's letter, which is dated August 26th, 1559, is given by La Planche, 211, 212, and, after him, by Hist. eccles., i. 141, 142.]

[Footnote 781: La Planche, 219; Hist. eccles., i. 143; cf. Forbes, State Papers, i. 226.]

[Footnote 782: La Planche, 220; Hist. eccles., _ubi supra_. It is not at all improbable that those who endeavored to influence Catharine showed too little discretion in their zeal, and needlessly provoked her displeasure by reference to the judgment of God upon her husband. So, at least, thought the judicious Frenchman Languet, who added, with some bitterness, that whoever urged upon them moderation was rewarded for his pains by being called a traitor to the faith. Epist. secretae, ii. 41.]

[Footnote 783: Or, Trouillard, according to Castelnau, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 784: La Planche, 223-225; Castelnau, liv. i., c. 4; De Thou, ii. 691.]

[Footnote 785: La Planche and De Thou, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 786: Epistolae secretae, ii. 30.]

[Footnote 787: See _ante_, c. viii., p. 275. The authority of the Memoires de Tavannes (ii. 258)--"Les chambres ardentes sont erigees pour persecuter les Huguenots, et ce d'autant plus que les princes du sang et les freres de Coligny favorisoient la religion nouvelle"--cannot weigh against the positive statement of the preamble of Henry II.'s edict of Paris, Nov. 19, 1549, _ante_, c. viii., p. 275. Yet Drion, Hist. chron. de l'eglise prot. de France, i. 63, places the original institution here.]

[Footnote 788: Drion, i. 64; Hist. eccles., i. 151. On the other hand, Protestant sympathizers sometimes interfered with the course of law in the interest of their brethren in the faith. "Since our arrivall to this towne," wrote Killigrew and Jones from Blois, Nov. 14, 1559, "there were xvii persones taken for the worde's sake, and committed to the sergeaunts to be conveyed to Orleauns, and other places therabouts, to be prosecuted. Notwithstanding, it hathe so happened, as the prisoners in the way betwene this towne and Orleans were rescued, and taken from the sergeaunts who had charge of them, by sixty men on horsebacke, and so were conveyed away." Forbes, State Papers, i. 261. At Rouen, Jan. 29, 1560, a bookbinder was snatched from between two friars, as he was being led in a cart to be burned alive, a cloak thrown over him, and he conveyed out of the hands of his enemies. Unfortunately, the gates having been closed, he was recaptured the same night, and the cruel sentence was executed the next day, with a guard of 300 men-at-arms, for fear of the people. Memorandum of Feb. 8th, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 789: La Planche, 236, 337; De Thou, ii. 705, 706.]

[Footnote 790: "Comme d'abus." La Place, 19; Crespin, Gal. chretienne, ii. 304.]