Chapter X (1)

THE ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES AT FONTAINEBLEAU, AND THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF FRANCIS THE SECOND.

[Sidenote: Rise of the name "Huguenots."]

[Sidenote: Various explanations given.]

The tempest which had threatened to overwhelm the Guises at Amboise had been successfully withstood; but quiet had not returned to the minds of those whose vices were its principal cause. The air was still thick with noxious vapors, and none could tell how soon or in what quarter the elements of a new and more terrible convulsion would gather.[847] The recent commotion had disclosed the existence of a body of malcontents, in part religious, in part also political, scattered over the whole kingdom and of unascertained numbers. To its adherents the name of _Huguenots_ was now for the first time given.[848] What the origin of this celebrated appellation was, it is now perhaps impossible to discover. Although a number of plausible derivations have been given, it is not unlikely that all are equally far removed from the truth, and that the word arose from some trivial circumstance that has completely passed into oblivion. It has been traced back to the name of the _Eidgenossen_ or _confederates_, under which the party of freedom figured in Geneva when the authority of the bishop and duke was overthrown;[849] or to the _Roy Huguet_, or _Huguon_, a hobgoblin supposed to haunt the vicinity of Tours, to whom the superstitious attributed the nocturnal assemblies of the Protestants;[850] or to the gate _du roy Huguon_ of the same city, near which those gatherings were wont to be made.[851] Some of their enemies maintained the former existence of a diminutive coin known as a _huguenot_, and asserted that the appellation, as applied to the reformed, arose from their "not being worth a _huguenot_" or farthing.[852] And some of their friends, with equal confidence and no less improbability, declared that it was invented because the adherents of the house of Guise secretly put forward claims upon the crown of France in behalf of that house as descended from _Charlemagne_, whereas the Protestants loyally upheld the rights of the Valois sprung from _Hugh_ Capet.[853] In the diversity of contradictory statements, we may perhaps be excused if we suspend our judgment of their respective merits, and prefer to look upon this partisan name as one with whose original import not a score of persons in France besides its fortuitous inventor may have been acquainted, and which may have had nothing to recommend it to those who so readily adopted it, save novelty and the recognized need of some more convenient name than "Lutherans," "Christaudins," or the awkward circumlocution, "those of the religion." Be this as it may, not a week had passed after the conspiracy of Amboise before the word was in everybody's mouth. Few knew or cared whence it arose.[854]

[Sidenote: Its sudden rise.]

A powerful party, whatever name it might bear, had sprung up, as it were, in a night. There was sober truth conveyed in the jesting letter of some fugitives to the Cardinal of Lorraine. Twenty or thirty Huguenots succeeded in breaking the bars of their prison at Blois, and, letting themselves down by cords, escaped. Some others at Tours, a few days later, were equally fortunate. Scarcely had the latter regained their liberty when they wrote a letter to the prelate who was supposed to take so deep an interest in their concerns, informing him that, having heard of the escape of his prisoners at Blois, they had been so grieved, that, for the love they bore him, they had immediately started out in search. And they begged him not to distress himself on account of their absence; for they assured him that _they would all soon return to see him, and would bring with them not only these, but all the rest of those that had conspired to take his life_.[855]

[Sidenote: How to be accounted for.]

No feature of the rise of the Reformation in France is more remarkable than the sudden impulse which it received during the last year or two of Henry the Second's life, and especially within the brief limits of the reign of his eldest son. The seed had been sown assiduously for nearly forty years; but the fruit of so much labor had been comparatively slight and unsatisfactory. Much of the return proved to be of a literary and philosophical, rather than of a religious character, and tended to intellectual development instead of the purification of religions belief and practice. Much of the seed was choked by relentless persecution. Bishops and preachers, the gay poet, and the time-serving courtier, fell away with alarming facility, when the blight of the royal displeasure fell upon those who professed a desire to abolish the superstitious observances of the established church.

[Sidenote: A sudden harvest.]

But now, within a few brief months, the harvest seemed, as by a miracle, to be approaching simultaneously over the whole surface of the extended field. The grains of truth long since lodged in an arid soil, and apparently destitute of all vitality, had suddenly developed all the energy of life. France to the reformers, whose longing eyes were at length permitted to see this day, was "white unto the harvest," and only the reapers were needed to put forth the sickle and gather the wheat into the garner. There was not a corner of the kingdom where the number of incipient Protestant churches was not considerable. Provence alone contained sixty, whose delegates this year met in a synod at the blood-stained village of Merindol. In large tracts of country the Huguenots had become so numerous that they were no longer able or disposed to conceal their religious sentiments, nor content to celebrate their rites in private or nocturnal assemblies. This was particularly the case in Normandy, in Languedoc, and on the banks of the Rhone.

[Sidenote: The progress of letters]

[Sidenote: and of intelligence.]

It may be worth while to pause here, and inquire into some of the causes of this rapid spread of the doctrines of the Reformation after the long period of comparative stagnation preceding. One of these was undoubtedly the astonishing progress of letters in France during the last forty years. From being neglected and rough, the French language, during the first half of the sixteenth century, became the most polite of the tongues spoken in Western Europe--thanks to a series of eminent prose writers and poets who graced the royal court. The generation reaching manhood in the latter years of the reign of Henry the Second were far better educated than the contemporaries of Francis the First. The public mind, through the elevating tendencies of schools fostered by royal bounty, was to a considerable degree emancipated from the thraldom of superstition. It repudiated the silly romanese, passing for the lives of the saints, with which the public had formerly been satisfied. It scrutinized minutely every pretended miracle of the papal churches and convents, and exposed the trickery by which a corrupt clergy sought to maintain itself in popular esteem. Thus the growing intelligence and widening information of the people prepared them to appreciate the merits of the great doctrinal controversy now occupying the attention of enlightened minds. Interest in the discussion of the most important themes that can occupy the human contemplation was both stimulated and gratified by a constant influx of religious works from the teeming presses of Strasbourg, Basle, Lausanne, Neufchatel, and especially Geneva. And the verdict of the great majority of readers and thinkers was favorable to the Swiss and German controversialists.

[Sidenote: Calvin's Institutes.]

[Sidenote: Marot and Beza's Psalms.]

Next to the Bible, translated originally by Olivetanus, and in its successive editions rendered more conformable to the Hebrew and Greek texts, the "Christian Institutes" exerted the most powerful influence. The close logic of Calvin's treatises, speaking in a style clear, concise and nervous, and touching a chord of sympathy in each French reader, made its deep impress upon the intellect and heart, while captivating the ear. Calvin's commentaries on the sacred volume rendered its pages luminous and familiar. Other works exerted an influence scarcely inferior. The "Actions and Monuments" of the martyrs, by Jean Crespin, printer and scholar, not only perpetuated the memory of the witnesses for the truth, but stimulated others to copy their fidelity. Marot and Beza's metrical versions of the Psalms, wafted into popularity, even among those who at first little sympathized with the piety of the words, by the novelty and beauty of the music to which they were sung, were powerful auxiliaries to the arguments of the theologian. They entered the house of the peasant and invested its homely scenes with a calm derived from the contemplation of the bliss of a heaven where the fleeting distinctions of the present shall melt away. They nerved the humble artisan to patience and to the cheerful endurance of obloquy and reproach. They attracted to the gathering of persecuted reformers in the by-street, in the retired barn, or on the open heath or mountain side, the youth who preferred their melody and intelligible words to the jargon of a service conducted in a tongue understood only by the learned. In the royal court, or rising in loud chorus from a thousand voices on the crowded _Pre-aux-Clercs_, they were winged messengers of the truth, where no other messengers could have found utterance with impunity.

[Sidenote: Morals and martyrdom.]

The blameless purity of life of the men and women whom, for religion's sake, the officers of the law put to death with every species of indignity and with inhuman cruelty, when contrasted with the flagrant corruption of the clergy and the shameless dissoluteness of the court, openly fostered for their own base ends by cardinals themselves accused of every species of immorality and suspected of atheism, deeply affected the minds of the reflecting. One Anne Du Bourg put to death by a Charles of Lorraine made more converts in a day than all the executioners could burn in a year.

[Sidenote: Character of the ministers from Geneva.]

But, if the rapid spread of Protestant doctrines at this precise date is due to any one cause more than to another, that cause may probably be found in the character and numbers of the religious teachers. Converts from the Papal Church, principally priests and monks, were the first apostles of the Reformation. Few of them had received systematic training of any kind, none had a thorough acquaintance with biblical learning. Many embraced the truth only in part; some professed it from improper motives. The Lenten preachers whose leaning towards "Lutheranism" was sufficiently marked to attract the hatred of the Sorbonne, were generally orators, more solicitous of popularity than jealous for the truth--fickle and inconstant men whose apostasy inflicted deep wounds upon the cause with which they had been identified, and more than neutralized all the good done by their previous exertions. But now a brotherhood of theologians took their place, not less zealous for the faith than disciplined in intellect. Geneva[856] was the nursery from which a vigorous stock was transplanted to French soil. The theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the shores of Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost inevitable death stared them in the face. But they entered it intelligently and resolutely, with the training of mind and of soul which an athlete might receive from such instructors, and their prayerful, trustful and unselfish endeavor met an ample recompense.[857]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots of Valence]

[Sidenote: seize the church of the Franciscans.]

The course of events in many cities of Southern France is illustrated by the occurrences at Valence, which the most authentic and trustworthy historian of this reign has described at length. This episcopal city, situated on the Rhone, about midway between Lyons and Avignon, had for some time contained a small community of Huguenots. When, in order to avoid persecution, their minister, who had become known to their enemies, was replaced by another, a period of unexampled growth began. The private houses in which the Protestants met were too small to contain the worshippers. They now adjourned to the large schools, but at first held their services by night. Soon their courage grew with the advent of a second minister and with large accessions to their ranks. The younger and more impetuous part of the Protestants, disregarding the prudent counsels of their pastors and elders, ventured upon the bold step of seizing upon the Church of the Franciscans, and caused the Gospel to be openly preached from its pulpit. The people assembled, summoned by the ringing of the bell; and it was not long before the reformed doctrines were relished and embraced by great crowds. A goodly number of armed gentlemen simultaneously took possession of the adjoining cloisters, and protected the Protestant rites. The co-religionists of Montelimart and Romans, considerable towns not far distant, emboldened by the example of Valence, resorted to public preaching in the churches or within their precincts.[858]

[Sidenote: A public assembly of citizens.]

[Sidenote: An impressive scene.]

[Sidenote: The public morals.]

On receiving the intelligence of the sudden outbreak of Protestant zeal in his diocese, the Bishop of Valence--himself at one time possibly half-inclined to become a convert--despatched thither the Seneschal of Valentinois with the royal Edict of Forgiveness published at Amboise for all who had taken arms and conspired against the king. The citizens were summoned to a public assembly, in which the magistrates, the consuls, the clergy, and the chief Huguenots were conspicuous. After reading and explaining the terms of the royal clemency, the seneschal turned to the Protestants, who stood by themselves, and demanded whether they intended to avail themselves of its protection. Mirabel, their chief spokesman, replied that it was the custom of the reformed churches to offer prayer to God before treating of so important affairs as this, and proffered a request that they be allowed to invoke His presence and blessing. Permission was granted. A citizen of Valence, who was also a deacon of the Reformed Church, thereupon came forward, and uttered a fervent prayer for the prosperity of the king and his realm, and for the progress of the Gospel. The Protestant gentlemen reverently uncovered their heads and knelt upon the ground, and their Roman Catholic neighbors imitated their example. But it was noticed that the clergy stood unmoved and refused to join in the act of worship. The prayer being ended, a Huguenot orator delivered the answer of his brethren. It was, that they rejoiced and rendered thanks for the benignity of their young prince; but that they could not avail themselves of the pardon offered. They had never conspired against their king. On the contrary, they professed a religion that enjoined the most dutiful obedience. As for bearing arms, it had only been resorted to by the Huguenots in order that they might protect themselves against the unauthorized insults and violence of private persons. The citizen was followed by a _procureur_, who, for eight years, had kept the criminal records of Valence. He bore public testimony to a wonderful change that had come over the city since the introduction of the preaching of the Gospel. The acts of violence which formerly rendered the streets so dangerous by night that few dared to venture out of their houses, even to visit their neighbors, had almost disappeared. The fearful story of crime which used to confront him every morning had been succeeded by a chronicle of quiet and peace. It would seem that with a change of doctrine had also come a transformation of life. The speaker challenged the other side to gainsay his statements; and when not a voice was heard in contradiction, he administered to the Papists a scathing rebuke for the calumnies which some of them had forged against the Protestants behind their backs. With this triumphant refutation of the charges of disorder, the assembly broke up.[859]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots of Dauphiny to be exterminated.]

The province of Dauphiny, within whose limits Valence, Romans and Montelimart were comprehended, was a government entrusted to the Duke of Guise. Moved with indignation at finding it become the hotbed of Protestantism, he determined to crush the Huguenots before impunity had given them still greater boldness. The governors of adjacent provinces were ordered to assist in the pious undertaking. King Francis, in a paroxysm of rage, wrote to Tavannes, acting governor of Burgundy, to take all the men-at-arms under his command and march to the assistance of Clermart, Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, in cutting to pieces those who had taken up arms under color of religion. They were, he heard, three or four thousand men, and had instituted public preaching "after the Geneva fashion," with all other insolent acts conceivable. He begged him to punish them as they deserved, showing no pity or compassion, since they had refused to take advantage of the forgiveness of past offences which had been sent them. He was to _extirpate_ the evil.[860]

These and other equally brutal instructions were obeyed with alacrity; but their execution was effected rather by treachery than by open force. The Huguenots of Valence were first induced by promises of security to lay aside their arms, then imprisoned and despoiled by a party consisting of the very dregs of the population of Lyons and Vienne. Two of the ministers were put to death[861] in company with three of the principal men, one being the _procureur_ who had given such noble testimony to the morals of the Protestants. More would have been executed had not the Bishop of Valence been induced to intercede for his episcopal city, and obtain amnesty for its citizens. Romans and Montelimart fared little better than Valence.[862]

[Sidenote: Concourse at Nismes.]

At Nismes, in Languedoc--destined periodically, for the next three centuries, to be the scene of civil dissension arising from religious intolerance--as early as in Holy Week, three Protestant ministers had been preaching in private houses and administering baptism. On Easter Monday a large concourse from the city and the surrounding villages publicly passed out into the suburbs--armed, if we may believe the cowardly Vicomte de Joyeuse, with corselets, arquebuses, and pikes--and celebrated the Lord's Supper "after the manner of Geneva." Neither the presidial judges nor the consuls exhibited much disposition to second the efforts of the provincial government in suppressing these manifestations.[863]

[Sidenote: Mouvans in arms in Provence.]

[Sidenote: His message to Guise.]

In Provence the commotion assumed a more military aspect, in immediate connection with the conspiracy of Amboise. Mouvans, an able leader, after failing in an attempt to gain admission to Aix, long maintained himself in the open country. Keeping up a wonderful degree of discipline in his army, he allowed his soldiers, indeed, to destroy the images in the churches and to melt down the rich reliquaries of gold and silver, but scrupulously required them to place the precious metal in the hands of the local authorities. At length, forced to capitulate to the Comte de Tende, the royal governor, he obtained the promise of security of person and liberty of worship. New acts of treachery rendered his position unsafe, and he retired to Geneva. It was thence that he returned to the Duke of Guise, who professed to be eager to secure for himself the services of so able a commander, a noble answer: "So long as I know you to be an enemy of my religion and of the public peace, and to be occupying the place of right belonging to the princes of the blood, you may be assured you have an enemy in Mouvans, a poor gentleman, but able to bring against you fifty thousand good servants of the King of France, who are ready to endanger life and property in redressing the wrongs you have inflicted on the faithful subjects of his Majesty."[864]

[Sidenote: A popular awakening.]

It was impossible to ignore the fact: France had awakened from the sleep of ages. The doctrines of the Reformation were being embraced by the masses. It was impossible to repress the impulse to confess with the mouth[865] what was believed in the heart. At Rouen, the earnest request of the authorities, seconded by the prudent advice of the ministers, might prevail upon the Protestant community still to be content with an unostentatious and almost private worship, upon promise of connivance on the part of the Parliament of Normandy. But Caen, St. Lo, and Dieppe witnessed great public assemblies,[866] and Central and Southern France copied the example of Normandy. The time for secret gatherings and a timid worship had gone by. They were no longer in question. "When cities and almost entire provinces had embraced the faith of the reformers," a recent historian has well remarked,[867] "secret assemblies became an impossibility. A whole people cannot shut themselves up in forests and in caverns to invoke their God. From whom would they hide? From themselves? The very idea is absurd."

[Sidenote: Pamphlets against the usurpers.]

[Sidenote: The queen mother consults La Planche.]

The political ferment was not less active than the religious. The pamphlets and the representations made by the emissaries of the Guises to foreign powers, in which the movement at Amboise was branded as a conspiracy directed against the king and the royal authority, called forth a host of replies vindicating the _political_ Huguenots, and setting their project in its true light, as an effort to overthrow the intolerable usurpation of the Guises. The tyrants were no match for the patriots in the use of the pen; but it fared ill with the author or printer of these libels, when the strenuous efforts made to discover them proved successful.[868] The politic Catharine de' Medici, fearing a new and more dreadful outburst of the popular discontent, renewed her hollow advances to the Protestant churches,[869] held a long consultation with Louis Regnier de la Planche (the eminent historian, whose profoundly philosophical and exact chronicle of this short reign leaves us only disappointed that he confined his masterly investigations to so limited a field) respecting the grounds of the existing dissatisfaction,[870] and despatched Coligny to Normandy for the purpose of finding a cure for the evil.

[Sidenote: Edict of Romorantin, May, 1560.]

[Sidenote: No abatement of rigor.]

The Guises, on the other hand, resolved to meet the difficulties of their situation with boldness. The opposition, so far as it was religious, must be repressed by legislation strictly enforced. Accordingly, in the month of May, 1560, an edict was published known as the _Edict of Romorantin_, from the place where the court was sojourning, but remarkable for nothing save the misapprehensions that have been entertained respecting its origin and object.[871] It restored exclusive jurisdiction in matters of simple heresy to the clergy, excluding the civil courts from all participation, save to execute the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge. But it neither lightened nor aggravated the penalties affixed by previous laws. _Death_ was still to be the fate of the convicted heretic, to whom it mattered little whether he were tried by a secular or by a spiritual tribunal, except that the forms of law were more likely to be observed by the former than by the latter. A section directed against the "assemblies" in which, under color of religion, arms were carried and the public peace threatened, declared those who took part in them to be rebels liable to the penalties of treason.[872]

[Sidenote: Death of Chancellor Olivier.]

A remarkable figure now comes upon the stage of French affairs in the person of Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital. Chancellor Olivier, who had merited universal respect while losing office in consequence of his steadfast resistance to injustice under the previous reign, had forfeited the esteem of the good by his complaisance when restored to office by the Guises at the beginning of the present reign. Overcome with remorse for the cruelties in which he had acquiesced since his reinstatement, he fell sick shortly after the tumult of Amboise. When visited during his last illness by the Cardinal of Lorraine, he coldly turned his back upon him and muttered, "Ah! Cardinal, you have caused us all to be damned."[873] He died not long afterward, and was buried without regret, despised by the patriotic party on account of his unfaithfulness to early convictions, and hated by the Guises for his tardy condemnation of their measures.

[Sidenote: Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital.]

Of L'Hospital, because raised to the vacant charge by the Lorraine influence, little good was originally expected.[874] But the lapse of a few years revealed the incorruptible integrity of his character and the sagacity of his plans.[875] Elevated to the highest judicial post at a critical juncture, he accepted a dignity for which he had little ambition, only that he might the better serve his country. What he could not remedy he resolved to make as endurable as possible. It was not within the power of a single virtuous statesman to allay the storm and quiet the surging waters; but by good-will, perseverance, and nerve, he might steer the ship of state through many a narrow channel and by many a hidden rock. An ardent lover and earnest advocate of toleration, he yet considered it politic to consent to urge the Parliament of Paris, in the king's name, to register the Edict of Romorantin, in accordance with which the system of persecution was for a while to be continued. One of the original conspirators of Amboise, according to the explicit statement of a writer who saw his signature affixed to the secret papers of the confederates,[876] he made no opposition to the article that pronounced the penalties of treason upon those who assembled in arms to celebrate the rites of religious worship. Yet he dissembled not from timidity, treachery, or ambition, but solely that by unremitting labor he might heal the unhappy dissensions of his country. "_Patience, patience, tout ira bien_," were the words he always had in his mouth for encouragement and consolation.[877]

[Sidenote: Perplexity of the ruling family.]

As the summer advanced the perplexities of the Guises increased. Every day there were new alarms. The English ambassador, not able to conceal his satisfaction at the perplexity of his queen's covert enemies, wrote to Cecil: "If I should discourse particularly unto you what these men have done since my last letters ... you would think me as fond in observing their doings as they mad in variable executing. But you may see what force _fear_ hath that occasioned such variety.... They be in such security, as no man knoweth overnight where the king will lodge. Tomorrow from all parts they have such news as doth greatly perplex them. Every day new advertisements of new stirs, as of late again in Dauphiny, in Anjou, in Provence; and to make up their mouths, the king being in the skirts of Normandy, at Rouen, upon Corpus Christi Day, there was somewhat to do about the solemn procession, so as there was many slain in both parts. But at length the churchmen had the worse, and for an advantage, the order is by the king commanded, that the priests for their outrage shall be grievously punished. What judge you when the Cardinal of Lorraine is constrained to command to punish the clergy, and such as do find fault with others' insolence, contemning the reverent usage to the holy procession!"[878]

[Sidenote: Montbrun in the Comtat Venaissin.]

[Sidenote: Universal commotion.]

New commotions had indeed arisen in the south-east, where Montbrun, a nephew of Cardinal Tournon, the inquisitor-general, had entered the small domain of the Pope, the Comtat Venaissin, as a Huguenot leader.[879] Conde had dexterously escaped the snares laid for him, and had taken refuge with his brother, Navarre.[880] Their spies reported to the Guises a state of universal commotion; and deputies from all parts of France rehearsed in the ears of the Bourbon princes the story of the usurpations of the Guises and the Protestant grievances, and urged them, by every consideration of honor and safety, to undertake to redress them.[881] The Guises had for some time been pressing the King of Spain and the Pope to forward the convening of a universal council, without which all would go to ruin.[882] In view of the great apathy displayed both by Philip and by Pius--perhaps, also, with the secret hope of enticing Navarre and Conde to come within their reach[883]--they consented to the plan which Catharine de' Medici, at the suggestion of L'Hospital and Coligny, now advocated, of summoning a council of notables to devise measures for allaying the existing excitement.[884]

[Sidenote: Assembly of notables at Fontainebleau, August 21, 1560.]

On the twenty-first of August this celebrated assembly was convened by royal letters in the stately palace at Fontainebleau.[885] Antoine of Navarre and the Prince of Conde declined, on specious pretexts, the king's invitation. Constable Montmorency accepted it, but came with a formidable escort of eight hundred attendants. His three nephews, the Chatillons, followed his example, and shared his protection. At the appointed hour a brilliant company was gathered in the spacious apartments of the queen mother. On either side of the king's throne sat Mary of Scots, and Catharine de' Medici, and the young princes--Charles Maximilian, Duke of Orleans, Edward Alexander, and Hercules.[886] Four cardinals, in their purple--Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, and Chatillon--sat below. Next to these were placed the Duke of Guise, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom; the Duke of Montmorency, as constable; L'Hospital, as chancellor; Marshals St. Andre and Brissac; Admiral Coligny; Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne; Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans; Montluc, Bishop of Valence; and the other members of the privy council. In front of these, the members of the Order of St. Michael, and the rest of the notables, occupied lower benches.[887]

[Sidenote: Chancellor L'Hospital's speech.]

The session opened with brief speeches delivered by Francis and his mother, setting forth the object of this extraordinary convocation, but referring their auditors to the chancellor and to the king's uncles for further explanations. Chancellor L'Hospital was less concise. He entertained the assembly with a lengthy comparison of the political malady to a bodily disease,[888] pronouncing the cure to be easy, if only the cause could be detected. He closed by assigning a somewhat singular reason for summoning but two of the three orders of the state. The presence of the _people_, he said, was in no wise necessary, _inasmuch as the king's sole object was to relieve the third estate_. Because, forsooth, the poor people--bowed down to the earth with taxes and burdens, which the _noblesse_ would not touch with one of their fingers--was the party chiefly interested in the results of the present deliberations, it was quite unessential that its complaints or requests should be heard! The Duke of Guise and his brother, the cardinal, next laid before the assembly an account of their administration of the army and finances; and the first day's session ended with the pleasant announcement that the royal revenues annually fell short of the regular expenses by the sum--very considerable for those days--of two and one-half millions of livres.

[Sidenote: Coligny speaks and presents two petitions.]

When next the notables met, two days later, the king formally proposed a free discussion of the subject in hand. The youngest member of the privy council was about to speak, when Gaspard de Coligny arose, and, advancing to the throne, twice bowed humbly to the king. By the royal orders, he said, he had lately visited Normandy and investigated the origin of the recent commotions. He had satisfied himself that they were owing to no ill-will felt toward the crown; but only to the extreme and illegal violence with which the inhabitants had been treated for religion's sake. He had, therefore, believed it to be his duty to listen to the requests of the persecuted, who offered to prove that their doctrines were conformable to the Holy Scriptures and to the traditions of the primitive church, and to take charge of the two petitions which they had drawn up and addressed to his Majesty and the queen mother. They were without signatures; for these could not be affixed without the royal permission previously granted the reformed to assemble together. But, with that permission, he could obtain the names of fifty thousand persons in Normandy alone. In answer to Coligny's prayer that the king would take his action in good part, Francis assured him that his past fidelity was a sufficient pledge of his present zeal; and commanded L'Aubespine, secretary of state, to read the papers which the admiral had just placed in his hands.

[Sidenote: The petitions are read.]

[Sidenote: They ask for liberty of worship.]

The petitions,[889] addressed, one to the king, the other to the queen mother, purported to come from "the faithful Christians scattered in various parts of the kingdom." They set forth the severity of the persecutions the Huguenots had undergone, and were yet undergoing, for attempting to live according to the purity of God's word, and their supreme desire to have their doctrine subjected to examination, that it might be seen to be neither seditious nor heretical. The suppliants begged for an intermission of the cruel measures which had stained all France with blood. They professed an unswerving allegiance, as in duty bound, to the king whom God had called to the throne. And of that king they prayed that the occasion of so many calumnies, invented against them by reason of the secret and nocturnal meetings to which they had been driven by the prohibition of open assemblies, might be removed; and that, with the permission to meet publicly for the celebration of divine rites, houses for worship might also be granted to them.[890]

It was a perilous step for the admiral to take. By his advocacy of toleration he incurred liability to the extreme penalties that had been inflicted upon others for utterances much less courageous. But the very boldness of the movement secured his safety where more timid counsels might have brought him ruin. Besides, it was not safe to attack so gallant a warrior, and the nephew of the powerful constable. Yet the audible murmurs of the opposite party announced their ill-will.

[Sidenote: Speech of Montluc, Bishop of Valence.]

[Sidenote: The remedy prescribed.]

The fearlessness of the admiral, however, kindled to a brighter flame the courage of others. Strange as it may appear, toleration and reform found their warmest and most uncompromising advocates on the episcopal bench.[891] Montluc, Bishop of Valence, drew a startling contrast between the means that had been taken to propagate the new doctrines, and those by which the attempt had been made to eradicate them. For thirty years, three or four hundred ministers of irreproachable morals, indomitable courage, and notable diligence in the study of the Holy Scriptures, had been attracting disciples by the sweet name of Jesus continually upon their lips, and had easily gained over a people that were as sheep without a shepherd. Meanwhile, popes had been engrossed in war and in sowing discord between princes; the ministers of justice had made use of the severe enactments of the kings against heresy to enrich themselves and their friends; and bishops, instead of showing solicitude for their flocks, had sought only to preserve their revenues. Forty bishops might have been seen at one time congregated at Paris and indulging in scandalous excesses, while the fire was kindling in their dioceses.[892] The inferior clergy, who bought their curacies at Rome, added ignorance to avarice.[893] The ecclesiastical office became odious and contemptible when prelates conferred benefices on their barbers, cooks, and footmen. What must be done to avert the just anger of God? Let the king, in the first place, see that God's name be no longer blasphemed as heretofore. Let God's Word be published and expounded. Let there be daily sermons in the palace, to stop the mouths of those who assert that, near the king, God is never spoken of. Let the singing of psalms take the place of the foolish songs sung by the maids of the queens; for to prohibit the singing of psalms, which the Fathers extol, would be to give the seditious a good pretext for saying that the war was waged not against men, but against God, inasmuch as the publication and the hearing of His praises were not tolerated. A second remedy was to be found in a universal council, or, if the sovereign pontiff continued to refuse so just a demand, in a national council, to which the most learned of the new sect should be offered safe access. As to punishments, while the seditious, who took up arms under color of religion, ought to be repressed, experience had taught how unavailing was the persecution of those who embraced their views from conscientious motives, and history showed that three hundred and eighteen bishops at the Council of Nice, one hundred and fifty at Constantinople, and six hundred and thirty at Chalcedon, refused to employ other weapons, against the worst of convicted heretics, than the word of God. Montluc closed his eloquent discourse by opposing the proposition to grant the right of public assembly, because of the dangers to which it might lead; but advocated a wise discrimination in the punishment of offenders, according to their respective numbers and apparent motives.[894]

[Sidenote: Address of Archbishop Marillac.]

The Archbishop of Vienne, the virtuous Marillac, an elegant and effective orator, made a still more cogent speech. He regarded the General Council as the best remedy for present dissensions; but it was in vain to expect one, since, between the Pope, the emperor, the kings, and the Lutherans, the right time, place, and method of holding it could never be agreed upon by all; and France was like a man desperately ill, whose fever admitted of no delay that a physician might be called in from a distance. Hence, the usual resort to a national council, in spite of the Pope's discontent, was imperative. _France could not afford to die in order to please his Holiness._[895] Meanwhile, the prelates must be obliged to reside in their dioceses; nor must the Italians, those leeches that absorbed one-third of all the benefices and an infinite number of pensions, be exempted from the operation of the general rule.[896] Would paid troops be permitted thus to absent themselves from their posts in the hour of danger? Simony must be abolished at once, as a token of sincerity in the desire to reform the church. Otherwise Christ would come down and drive his unworthy servants from His church, as He once drove the money-changers from the temple. Especially must churchmen repent with fasting, and take up the word of God, which is a _sword_, "whereas, at present," said the speaker, "_we have only the scabbard--in mitres and croziers, in rochets and tiaras_." Everything that tended to disturb the public tranquillity, whether from seditious leaders, or from equally seditious zealots, must be repressed.

[Sidenote: The States General must be called.]

Nor was the advice given by Marillac for securing the continued obedience of the people less sound. He regarded the assembling of the States General as indispensable, in view of the great debts and burdens of the people. He warned the king's counsellors lest the people, accustomed to have its complaints of grievances unattended to, should begin to lose the hope of relief, and lest the proverbial promptness and gentleness which the French nation had always shown in meeting the king's necessities should be so badly met and so frequently offended as at last to turn into rage and despair.[897]

[Sidenote: Speech of Admiral Coligny.]

Such was "the learned, wise, and Christian harangue," as the chronicler well styles it, of "an old man eloquent," whom, like another Isocrates, "the dishonest victory" of his country's real enemies was destined to "kill with report." The profound impression it made was deepened by the speech of Admiral Coligny, whose turn it was, on the next day (the twenty-fourth of August), to announce his sentiments, he declared himself ready to pledge life and all he held most dear, that the hatred of the people was in no wise directed against the king, but against his ministers, whom he loudly blamed for surrounding their master with a guard, as though he needed this protection against his loyal subjects. Supporting the proposition of the Archbishop of Vienne for assembling the States General, the admiral advocated, in addition, the immediate dismissal of the guard, in order to remove all jealousy between king and people, and the discontinuance of persecution, until such time as a council--general or national--might be assembled. Meanwhile, he advised that the requests of the reformed, whose petitions he had presented, be granted; that the Protestants be allowed to assemble for the purpose of praying to God, hearing the preaching of His word, and celebrating the holy sacraments. If houses of worship were given them in every place, and the judges were instructed to see to the maintenance of the peace, he felt confident that the kingdom would at once become quiet and the subjects be satisfied.[898]

[Sidenote: Rejoinder of the Duke of Guise.]

The Guises spoke on the same day. The duke made a short, but passionate rejoinder to Coligny, and gave little or no attention to the question proposed for deliberation. He bitterly retorted to the proposal for the dismissal of the body-guard, by saying that it had been placed around the king only since the discovery of the treasonable plot of Amboise, and he indignantly maintained that a conspiracy against ministers was only a cover for designs against their master. As for the announcement of the admiral that he could bring fifty thousand names to his petitions, which he construed as a personal threat, he angrily replied that if that or a greater number of the Huguenot sect should present themselves, the king would oppose them with a million men of his own.[899] The question of religion he left to be discussed by others of more learning; but well was he assured that not all the councils of the world would detach him from the ancient faith. The assembling of the States he referred to the king's discretion.[900]

[Sidenote: The Cardinal of Lorraine is more politic.]

The cardinal was more politic, and suppressed the manifestation of that deadly hatred which, from this time forward, the brothers cherished against Coligny. He declared, however, that, although the petitioners laid claim to such loyalty, their true character was apparent from the affair at Amboise, as well as from the daily issue of libellous pamphlets and placards, of which he had not less than twenty-two on his table directed against himself, which he carefully preserved as his best eulogium and claim to immortality. He advocated the severe repression of the seditious; yet, with a stretch of hypocrisy and mendacity uncommon even with a Guise, he expressed himself as for his own part very sorry that such "grievous executions" had been inflicted upon those who went "without arms and from fear of being damned to hear preaching, or who sang psalms, neglected the mass, or engaged in other observances of theirs," and as being in favor of no longer inflicting such useless punishments! Nay, he would that his life or death might be of some service in bringing back the wanderers to the path of truth. He opposed a council as unnecessary--it could not do otherwise than decide as its predecessors--but consented to a convocation of the clergy for the reformation of manners. The States General he thought might well be gathered to see with what prudence the administration of public affairs had been carried on.[901]

[Sidenote: Results of the Assembly of Fontainebleau.]

[Sidenote: The States General to be convened.]

With the Cardinal of Lorraine the discussion ended. All the knights of the order of St. Michael acquiesced in his opinions, but indulged in no farther remarks. On the twenty-sixth of August the decision was announced. The States General were to convene on the tenth of December, at Meaux, or such other city as the king might hereafter prefer. A month later (on the twentieth of January) the prelates were to come together wherever the king might be, thence to proceed to the national, or to the general council, if such should be held. Meanwhile, in each bailiwick and "senechaussee," the three orders were to be separately assembled, in order to prepare minutes of their grievances, and elect delegates to the States General; and all legal proceedings and all punishment for the matter of religion were to be suspended save in the case of those who assembled in arms and were seditious.[902]

Such was the history of this famous assembly, in which, for the first time, the Huguenots found a voice; where views were calmly expressed respecting toleration and the necessity of a council, which a year before had been punished with death; where the chief persecutor of the reformed doctrines, carried away by the current, was induced to avow liberal principles.[903] This was progress enough for a single year. The enterprise of Amboise was not all in vain.

[Sidenote: New alarms.]

[Sidenote: Antoine and Conde summoned to court.]

The Assembly of Fontainebleau had not dispersed when the court was thrown into fresh alarm. An agent of the King of Navarre, named La Sague, was discovered almost by accident, who, after delivering letters from his master to various friends in the neighborhood of Paris, was about to return southward with their friendly responses. He had imprudently given a treacherous acquaintance to understand that a formidable uprising was contemplated; and letters found upon his person seemed to bear out the assertion. The most cruel tortures were resorted to in order to elicit accusations against the Bourbons from suspected persons.[904] Among others, Francois de Vendome, Vidame of Chartres, one of the correspondents, was (on the twenty-seventh of August) thrown into the Bastile.[905] Three days later a messenger was despatched by the king to Antoine of Navarre, requesting him at once to repair to the capital, and to bring with him his brother Conde, against whom the charge had for six months been rife, that he was the head of secret enterprises, set on foot to disturb the peace of the realm.[906] At the same time an urgent request was sent to Philip the Second for assistance.[907]

[Sidenote: Philip adverse to a national council.]

[Sidenote: Projects to crush all heresy and its abettors.]

Nor was his Catholic Majesty reluctant to grant help--at least on paper. But he accompanied his promises with advice. In particular, he sent Don Antonio de Toledo to dissuade the French government from holding a national council in Paris for the reformation of religion, as he understood it was proposed to do during the coming winter. This, he represented, would be prejudicial to their joint interests; "for, should the French alter anything, the King of Spain would be constrained to admit the like in all his countries." To which it was replied in Francis's name, that "he would first assemble his three estates, and there propone the matter to see what would be advised for the manner of a calling a general council, not minding _without urgent necessity_ to assemble a council national." As to the Spanish help, conditioned on the prudence of the French government, the Argus-eyed Throkmorton, who by his paid agents could penetrate into the boudoirs of his fellow-diplomatists and read their most cherished secrets,[908] wrote to Queen Elizabeth that a gentleman had reported to him that he had seen "at the Pope's nuncio's hands a letter from the nuncio in Spain, wherein the aids were promised, and that the King of Spain had written to the French king that he would not only help him to suppress all heresy, trouble, and rebellion in France, but also join him to cause all such others as will not submit to the See Apostolic to come to order." In fact, Throkmorton was enabled to say just how many men were to come from Flanders, and how many from Spain, and how many were to enter by way of Narbonne, and how many by way of Navarre. Quick work was to be made of schism, heresy, and rebellion in France. "This done, and the parties for religion clean overthrown," added the ambassador, "these princes have already accorded to convert their power towards England and Geneva, which they take to be the occasioners and causers of all their troubles."[909]

[Sidenote: Navarre's irresolution embarrasses Montbrun.]

The King of Navarre had, even before the receipt of the royal summons, discovered the mistake he had committed in not listening to the counsel, and copying the example of the constable, who had come to Fontainebleau well attended by retainers. Unhappily, the irresolution into which he now fell led to the loss of a capital opportunity. The levies ordered by Francis in Dauphiny, for the purpose of assisting the papal legate in expelling Montbrun from the "Comtat," enabled the Sieur de Maligny to collect a large Huguenot force without attracting notice. It had been arranged that these troops should be first employed in seizing the important city of Lyons for the King of Navarre. A part of the Huguenot soldiers had, indeed, already been secretly introduced into the city,[910] when letters were received from the irresolute Antoine indefinitely postponing the undertaking. After having for several days deliberated respecting his best course of conduct in these unforeseen circumstances, Maligny decided to withdraw as quietly as he had come; but a porter, who had caught a glimpse of the arms collected in one of the places of rendezvous, informed the commandant of the city. In the street engagement which ensued the Huguenots were successful, and for several hours held possession of the city from the Rhone to the Saone. Finding it impossible, however, to collect the whole force to carry out his original design, Maligny retired under cover of the night, and was so fortunate as to suffer little loss.[911]

[Sidenote: The _people_ not discouraged.]

[Sidenote: "The fashion of Geneva."]

[Sidenote: Books from Geneva destroyed.]

Maligny's failure disconcerted Montbrun and Mouvans, with whom he had intended to co-operate, but had little effect in repressing the courage of the Huguenot _people_. Of this the royal despatches are the best evidence. Francis wrote to Marshal de Termes that since the Assembly of Fontainebleau there had been public and armed gatherings _in an infinite number of places_, where previously there had been only secret meetings. In Perigord, Agenois, and Limousin, _an infinite number_ of scandalous acts were daily committed by the seditious, who in most places _lived after the fashion of Geneva_. Such _canaille_ must be "wiped out."[912] A month later those pestilent "books from Geneva" turn up again. Count de Villars, acting for Constable Montmorency in his province of Languedoc, had burned two mule-loads of very handsomely bound volumes, much to the regret of many of the Catholic troopers, who grudged the devouring flames a sacrifice worth more than a thousand crowns.[913] But he quickly followed up the chronicle of this valiant action with a complaint of his impotence to reduce the sectaries to submission. The Huguenots of Nismes had taken courage, and guarded their gates. So, or even worse, was it of Montpellier[914] and Pezenas. Other cities were about to follow their example.

[Sidenote: Fifteen cities in one province receive ministers.]

[Sidenote: The children learn religion in the Geneva catechism.]

These were but the beginnings of evil. Three days passed, and the Lieutenant-Governor of Languedoc sent a special messenger to the king, to inform him of the rapid progress of the contagion. Fifteen of the most considerable cities of the province had openly received ministers.[915] Ten thousand foot and five hundred horse would be needed to reduce them, and, when taken, they must be held by garrisons, and punished by loss of their municipal privileges.[916] A fortnight more elapsed. Three or four thousand inhabitants of Nismes had retired in arms to the neighboring Cevennes.[917] When they descended into the plain, a larger number, who had submitted on the approach of the soldiery, would unite with them and form a considerable army. "Heresy, alas, gains ground daily," despondingly writes Villars; "_the children learn religion only in the catechism brought from Geneva; all know it by heart_." The cause of the evil he seemed to find in the circumstance--undoubtedly favorable to the Huguenots--that, of twenty-two bishops whose dioceses lay in Languedoc, all but five or six were non-residents.[918]

To all which lamentations the answer came back after the accustomed fashion: "Slay, hang without respect to the forms of law; send lesser culprits, if preferable, to the galleys."[919]

In Normandy, too, it began to be impossible for the Huguenots to conceal themselves. At Rouen, in spite of the severe penalties threatened, seven thousand persons gathered in the new market-place, on the twenty-sixth of August, "singing psalms, and with their preacher in the midst on a chair preaching to them," while five hundred men with arquebuses stood around the crowd "to guard them from the Papists." A few days before, at the opening of the great fair of Jumieges, a friar, according to custom, undertook to deliver a sermon; but the people, not liking his doctrine, "pulled him out of the pulpit and placed another in his place."[920]

[Sidenote: Elections for the States General.]