Chapter X (2)

Nor was the courage of the Huguenots less clearly manifested a little later in the elections preparatory to the holding of the States General. In spite of strict injunctions issued by the Cardinal of Lorraine to the officers in each bailiwick and senechaussee, to prevent the debate of grievances from touching upon the authority of the Guises or that of the Church, and especially to defeat the election of any but undoubted friends of the Roman Church, his friends were successful in neither attempt. The voice of the oppressed people made itself heard in thunder-tones at Blois, at Angers,[921] and elsewhere. Even in Paris--the stronghold of the Roman faith--the reformed ventured, in face of a vast numerical majority against them, to urge in the Hotel-de-Ville the insertion of their remonstrances in the "cahiers" of the city. Of thirteen provinces, ten addressed such complaints to the States General.[922]

[Sidenote: Clerical demands at Poitiers.]

But the clerical order did not forget its old demands, even where the Tiers Etat leaned to toleration. The provincial estates of Poitou, meeting in the Dominican convent of Poitiers, presented a contrast of this kind. The delegates of the people, after listening to the eloquent appeal of an intrepid Huguenot pastor, determined to petition the States General for the free exercise of the reformed religion. The representatives of the church made its complaints regarding the "ravishing wolves, false preachers, and their adherents, who are to-day in so great numbers that there are not so many true sheep knowing the voice of their shepherds." The "mild and holy admonitions" of the church having been thrown away upon these reprobates, the clergy proposed to open a register of all that should neglect to receive the sacrament at Easter, and to attend the church services with regularity. And it made the modest demand that all persons honored with an entry in this book should, as heretics, be deprived of all right to make contracts, that their wills be declared hull and void, and that all their property--in particular all houses in which preaching had been held--be confiscated. Of course, the aid of the secular arm was invoked, in view of "the great number and power of the said heretics."[923]

[Sidenote: Theodore Beza invited to Nerac.]

[Sidenote: Jeanne d'Albret.]

On the twentieth of July, at the urgent request of the King and Queen of Navarre, the "Venerable Company of the Pastors of Geneva" had sent the eloquent Theodore Beza to Gascony "to instruct" the royal family in the word of God.[924] In the dress of a nobleman he had traversed France and reached Nerac in safety. Here he at once exercised a powerful influence upon the king. The fickle mind of Antoine was susceptible of no deep impressions; but it was very easily affected for the time. His queen, Jeanne d'Albret, was his very opposite in mental and moral constitution. Whereas the very first blast threw him into a fervor of enthusiastic devotion to the purer faith, the heart of the queen--a woman not made to be led, but to lead--yielded slowly to the melting influences of the Gospel. But it never lost its glow. Jeanne came very reluctantly to the determination to cast in her lot with the Reformation. She hesitated to risk the loss of her possessions, and regretted to abandon the attractions of the world. When, however, the decision was once made, the question was never reopened for fresh deliberation.[925]

[Sidenote: Antoine's short-lived zeal.]

[Sidenote: New pressure upon Navarre and Conde.]

[Sidenote: Navarre's concessions.]

At this time, Antoine, we are told, renounced the mass, and was supposed to think, as he certainly spoke, of nothing but the means of advancing the cause in which he had embarked. Beza preached before him in one of the churches, and all signs pointed to the rapid establishment of the Reformation on a firm basis. The eloquent orator added his persuasion to the entreaties of the representatives of the Protestant churches of France and the exhortations of Constable Montmorency. All had urged Antoine to make his appearance at Fontainebleau with a powerful escort. We have seen the ill-success with which the joint effort was attended. The spies whom the Guises kept in pay around the King of Navarre, in the persons of his most intimate advisers, deterred him from a movement which they portrayed as fraught with peril. A few days after the conclusion of the assembly came the king's summons. To this Antoine at first replied that, if the accusers of his brother, of whose innocence he was fully persuaded, would declare themselves, and if he were assured that impartial justice would be shown, he would come to the court in company with few attendants. Conde wrote, at the same time, and expressed perfect confidence in his ability to disprove all the allegations against him, provided a safe access to the court was afforded him. On this point the suspicions of the Bourbon princes were soon set at rest by new letters from the king and his mother, assuring them that they would find not only security, but an opportunity to refute charges which Francis and Catharine professed themselves unwilling to credit.[926] To these reassuring words were joined the solicitations of their own brother, the shallow Cardinal of Bourbon,[927] and of the Cardinal of Armagnac. The princes, already discouraged by tidings of the failure of the projects of Montbrun, Mouvans and Maligny in the east, lent too ready an ear to these suggestions. The first open manifestation of weakness was when the King and Queen of Navarre, with their son, young Prince Henry of Bearn, consented to hear mass in the presence of many of their courtiers. But the extent of Antoine's concessions was, for a time, kept concealed from his followers. At the very moment when Beza was diligently visiting the well affected nobles, and urging them to lend prompt assistance, the Guises were exulting, with joy mingled with fear, over the promise given by Antoine to the Count of Crussol, that he would come, with an insignificant escort to Orleans, whither Francis had advanced. The tidings appeared too good to be true.[928] For, although the French king had received assurances of assistance from Philip--who was reported by the French envoy at Toledo to be favorable to the exercise of any severity against the Bourbon princes,[929] so great was his personal enmity toward them--yet the same ambassador had not failed to inform Charles that the troops ostensibly prepared for a French campaign were really intended for Italy and to make good the Spanish monarch's losses in Africa. On the other hand, unless Philip could send six hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand crowns to Flanders to pay arrearages and debts, he could not move a soldier across the lines from that quarter.[930]

[Sidenote: The Huguenot gentry offer him aid.]

[Sidenote: He dismisses his escort.]

The strictest orders had been given to the commandants of important points, such as Bordeaux and Poitiers, through which Antoine might intend passing, to guard them against him, in case of his showing any inclination to come otherwise than peaceably.[931] These precautions, however, proved unnecessary. Antoine intended to abide by his engagement. When by slow stages he had at length reached Limoges, he found a number of friendly noblemen awaiting him. In a few days more seven or eight hundred gentlemen had come in, well equipped and armed. They begged him at once to declare for the liberation of France, according to his previous promises. The nobility, they said, were only waiting for the word of command. Meanwhile Gascony, Poitou, and the coasts offered six or seven thousand foot soldiers, already enrolled under captains, and prepared to defend him against present attack. Provence and Languedoc would march to his assistance with three or four thousand horse and foot. Normandy would raise as many more. He would at once become so formidable that, without a blow, he could assume the guardianship of the king. Bourges and Orleans would fall into his hands, and the States General be held free of constraint. The very forces of the enemy would desert the sinking cause of the hated Guises. As for the necessary funds, with the best filled purses in France at his command, he could scarcely feel any lack. The suggestions of the Huguenot lords, backed by the entreaties of Beza, were, however, overborne by the secret insinuations of his treacherous counsellors. At Verteuil--a few leagues beyond--Navarre clearly announced his intentions, and dismissed his numerous friends with hearty thanks for their kind attentions. He would ask the king's pardon for those who had accompanied him thus far in arms. "Pardon!" replied one of the gentlemen, "think only of very humbly asking it for yourself, who are going to give yourself up as a prisoner with the halter around your neck. So far as I can see, you have more need of it than we have, who have determined not to sell our lives at so cheap a rate, but to die fighting rather than submit to the mercy of those detested enemies of the king. And since we are miserably forsaken by our leaders, we hope that God will raise up others to free us from the oppression of these tyrants."[932] This retort proving futile, as did also the warning of the Princess of Conde, who wrote and sent a messenger to her husband to escape from the toils of his enemies while it was still possible, the Huguenot gentry retired in disgust; and Beza seized the first opportunity (on the seventeenth of October) to steal away from the King of Navarre, and undertake his perilous return to Geneva, which he succeeded in reaching after a series of hair-breadth escapes.[933]

[Sidenote: Infatuation of the Bourbons.]

The King of Navarre had disregarded the counsels of Calvin and other prudent advisers, who believed that, if he presented himself with a powerful escort at the gates of Orleans, the Guises would yield without a blow.[934] Antoine felt confident that his enemies would never venture to lay hands on a prince of the royal blood. His blind infatuation seemed to infect Conde also. Their presumption was somewhat shaken when the royal governor of Poitiers forbade their entrance into that city. But the depth of the ruin into which they had plunged was more clearly revealed to their eyes as they began to approach Orleans. Friendly voices whispered the existence of a plan for their destruction; friendly hands offered to effect their escape to Angers, and thence into Normandy.[935] But the die was cast. Hostile troops enveloped them, and they resolved to continue their journey.

[Sidenote: They reach Orleans.]

[Sidenote: Conde arrested.]

Navarre had figured upon the journey much as a provost-marshal leading his brother to prison.[936] Now the imaginary resemblance was turned into a sad reality. On Thursday, the thirty-first of October, the Bourbons reached Orleans.[937] Their reception soon convinced them that they had placed their heads in the jaws of the lion. None of the courtiers save the cardinal, their brother, and La Roche-sur-Yon, their cousin, deigned to do them honor. That very day, after a few angry accusations from Francis, and a courageous vindication of his conduct by the chivalrous prince, Conde was arrested in the king's presence and by his order.[938] The King of Navarre also was, indeed, little better than a prisoner, so closely did he find himself watched.[939] In vain did Navarre remonstrate and plead the royal promise of security, offering himself to become a surety for his brother; the king denied redress. Then it was that Conde turned to the Cardinal of Bourbon, one of the few that had come to do him honor and said: "Sir, by your assurances you have delivered up your own brother to death."[940] Others shared in Conde's misfortune. Madame de Roye, his mother-in-law and a sister of Admiral Coligny, was brought a prisoner to St. Germain, and a careful search was made among her papers and elsewhere for the purpose of obtaining proofs of Conde's guilt.[941]

[Sidenote: Return of Renee of Ferrara.]

It was at this inauspicious moment that a distinguished princess reached Orleans, after an absence of thirty-two years from her native land, and was received with marked honors by the king and all the court, who went out to meet her and escort her to the city.[942] This was the celebrated Renee, younger daughter of Louis the Twelfth, and widow of Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, now returning, after the death of her husband, to spend her declining years at her retreat of Montargis on the Loing. The scene which she beheld awakened in her breast regret and indignation which she was not slow in expressing. To the Duke of Guise, who had married her daughter, Anne d'Este, she administered a severe rebuke. "Had I been present," she said, "I would have prevented this ill-advised step. It is no trifling matter to treat a prince of the blood in such a manner. The wound is one that will long bleed; for no man has ever yet attacked the blood of France but he has had reason to regret it."[943]

[Sidenote: Conde's courage.]

[Sidenote: His wife repulsed.]

The courage of the imprisoned prince rose with his misfortunes. The house in which he was incarcerated was flanked by a tower whose embrasures commanded the approach, the windows were newly barred, and the door was half-walled up to preclude the possibility of escape.[944] But Prince Louis stoutly maintained that it was not _he_ that was a captive, since, though his body was confined, his spirit was free and his conscience clean and guiltless; but rather _they_ were prisoners, who, with the freedom of their body, felt their conscience to be enslaved and harassed by a ceaseless recollection of their crimes.[945] His wife, the virtuous Eleonore de Roye, fruitlessly applied for admission in order to minister to his wants. She was rudely repulsed by the king, at whose feet she had thrown herself in a flood of tears, with the bitter remark that her husband was his mortal enemy, who had conspired not only to obtain his crown, but his life also, and that he could do no less than avenge himself upon him.[946] It was only by special effort that the few who dared avow themselves friends of the disgraced Bourbons, succeeded in obtaining for Conde legal counsel, and that these were allowed to hold brief interviews with the prince in the presence of two officers of the crown.[947] No others were admitted, save a pretended friend, to sound his disposition toward the Guises. Comprehending the motive of his visit, Conde begged him to inform those who had sent him, "that he had received so many outrages at their hands that there remained no path of reconciliation, save at the point of the sword; and that, although he seemed to be at their mercy, he still had confidence that God would avenge the injury done by them to a prince who had come at the command and relying on the word of his king, but had been shamefully imprisoned at their suggestion, in order to make in him a beginning of the destruction of the royal blood."[948]

[Sidenote: Conde tried by a commission.]

[Sidenote: He is found guilty and sentenced to be beheaded.]

A commission, consisting of Chancellor L'Hospital, President De Thou, Counsellors Faye and Viole, and a few others, was appointed, on the thirteenth of November, to conduct the trial. Conde refused to plead before them, taking refuge in his privilege, as a prince, to be tried only before the king and by his peers.[949] His appeals, however, were rejected by the privy council, and he was commanded, in the king's name, to answer, under pain of being held a traitor. In view of the known desire and intention of the king and his chief advisers, the trial was likely to be expeditious and not over-scrupulous.[950] The most innocent expressions of disapproval of the violent executions at Amboise were perverted into open approval of a plot against the king. The prosecution sought to establish the heresy of the prince, in order to furnish some ground for finding him guilty of treason against Divine as well as royal authority. Nor was this difficult. A priest, in full officiating vestments, was introduced, as by royal command, to say mass in Conde's presence. But the young Bourbon drove him out with rough words, declaring "that he had come to his Majesty with no intention of holding any communion with the impieties and defilements of the Roman Antichrist, but solely to relieve himself of the false accusations that had been made against him."[951] Before so partial a court the trial could have but one issue. Conde was found guilty, and condemned to be beheaded on a scaffold erected before the king's temporary residence, at the opening of the States General.[952] The sentence was signed not only by the judges to whom the investigation had been entrusted, but by members of the privy council, by the members of the Order of St. Michael, and by a large number of less important dignitaries, without even a formal examination into the merits of the case--so anxious were the Guises to involve as many influential persons as possible in the same responsibility with themselves. Of the privy councillors, Du Mortier and Chancellor de l'Hospital alone refused to append their signatures without a longer term for reflection, and endeavored to ward off the blow by procrastination.[953]

[Sidenote: Danger of the King of Navarre.]

Navarre was himself in almost equal danger. An attempt to poison him was frustrated by its timely revelation; a plot to assassinate him on leaving the king's residence, by the strength of his body-guard. A still more atrocious scheme was concocted. Francis was to stab his cousin of Navarre with his dagger, leaving his attendants to despatch him with their swords. Such murderous projects can rarely be kept secret. Even Catharine de' Medici is said to have attempted to dissuade Antoine from going to the palace by warning him of the danger he would incur. At the door of the king's chamber a friendly hand interposed, and a friendly voice asked: "Sire, whither are you going to your ruin?" But the prince, with a resolution which it had been well had he manifested at an earlier period, paused only a moment to say to his faithful Renty: "I am going to the spot where a conspiracy has been entered into to take my life.... If it please God, He will save me; but, if I die, I entreat you, by the fidelity I have ever known in you, ... to carry the shirt I wear, all covered with blood, to my wife and son, and to conjure my wife, by the great love she has always borne me, and by her duty (since my son is not yet old enough to avenge my death), to send it, torn by the dagger, and bloody, to the foreign princes of Christendom, that they may avenge my death, so cruel and treacherous."[954] These gloomy forebodings were not destined to be realized. Francis's anger evaporated in words, or was restrained by his mother's secret injunctions,[955] and Antoine of Navarre was suffered to go away unharmed. The duke and cardinal, who witnessed the scene from the recess of a window, are said to have muttered half audibly as they left the room, "That is the most cowardly heart that ever was!"[956]

[Sidenote: A plot for the utter destruction of the Huguenots.]

The assassination of the King of Navarre was, however, but a part of a larger plot for the utter destruction of the Huguenots and of Protestantism in France, the details of which are but imperfectly known.[957] It is alleged that preliminary lists of those infected by heresy had been obtained from all parts of France, and that a more exact knowledge was to be obtained by compelling all classes--from the nobility and members of the Order of St. Michael down to the simple citizen--to subscribe to the articles of faith drawn up eighteen years before by the Sorbonne.[958] At the close of the sessions of the States General, the full forces at the command of the court were to be set on foot, and four armies, under the Duke of Aumale and Marshals St. Andre, Brissac, and Termes, were to serve as the instruments of destruction. Termes was to effect a junction with a Spanish force entering France through Bearn; and the Governor of Bayonne was instructed to surrender that important city into the hands of Philip. The expenses of the crusade were to be defrayed by the clergy, who, from cardinal down to chaplain, were to retain of their income only the amount necessary for their bare subsistence.[959] The recent publication of the Pope's bull, renewing the Council of Trent, meanwhile served as a good excuse for forbidding the discussion of religious questions by the States General, then about to meet, by the king's direction, at Orleans instead of Meaux.[960]

[Sidenote: Illness of the king.]

The moment for the execution of this widespread plan of destruction was approaching, when its devisers were startled by the sudden discovery that the health of their nephew, the king, was fast failing. Francis's constitution, always frail, and now still further undermined, was giving way in connection with a gathering in the ear, which resisted the efforts of the most skilful physicians.[961] "This King," wrote the English ambassador, on the twenty-first of November, giving to his fellow-envoy at Madrid the first intimation of Francis's illness, "thought to have removed hence for a fortnight, but the day before his intended journey he felt himself somewhat evil disposed of his body, with a pain in his head and one of his ears, which hath stayed his removing from hence."[962] But the rapid progress of the disease soon made it clear that the trip to Chenonceau, "the queen's house," whence the king "was not to return hither until the Estates are assembled," would never be taken by Francis. The sceptre must pass into other hands even more feeble than his.

[Sidenote: The queen mother rejects the advances of the Guises,]

[Sidenote: and makes terms with Navarre.]

The Guises in consternation proposed to Catharine to hasten the death of Navarre and Conde,[963] and perhaps to put into immediate execution their ulterior projects. But Catharine de' Medici little relished an increased dependence[964] upon a family she had good reason to distrust. Instead of accepting the advances of the Guises, she hastened to make terms with the King of Navarre. In an interview with that weak prince, a compact was made which proved the source of untold evils. He had been forewarned by ladies in Catharine's interest, as he valued his life, to oppose none of her demands; but the wily Florentine scarcely expected so easy a triumph as she obtained. To the amazement of friend and foe, Antoine de Bourbon ceded his right to the regency, without a struggle, to the queen mother, a foreigner and not of royal blood. For himself he merely retained the first place under her, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. He even consented to be reconciled to his cousins of Guise, and, after publicly embracing them, promised to forget all past grounds of quarrel.[965]

[Sidenote: Death of Francis II., Dec. 5, 1560.]

The vows which Francis made "to God and to all the saints of paradise, male and female, and particularly to Notre-Dame-de-Clery, that, if they should grant him restoration of health, he would never cease until he had wholly purged the kingdom of those wicked heretics,"[966] proved unavailing. On the fifth of December, 1560, he died in the eighteenth year of his age and the seventeenth month of his reign. "God, who pierced the eye of the father, had now stricken the ear of the son."[967]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: "Epitre au Tigre de la Prance."]

The most annoying of the anonymous pamphlets against the Guises was
a letter bearing the significant direction: _Au Tigre de la
France_. Under this bloodthirsty designation every one knew that
the Cardinal of Lorraine alone could be meant, and the style of
the production showed that a master-hand in literature had been
concerned in the composition. The Guises were furious, but it was
impossible to discover the author or publisher of the libel. Both
succeeded admirably in preserving their incognito. Yet, as victims
were wanted to appease the anger of the ruling family, two unhappy
men expiated by their death a crime of which they were confessedly
innocent. The incident, which comes down to us attested not only by
the best of contemporary historians, but by the records of the
courts, recently brought to light, may serve to illustrate the
prevalent corruption of the judges and the occasional whimsical
application of the so-called justice wherein they were given to
indulging. Diligent search on the part of the friends of the Guises
led to the detection of only a single copy of the "Tigre," and this
was found in the house of one Martin Lhomme, or Lhommet, a printer
by trade, and miserably poor. There was no evidence at all that he
had had any part in printing or publishing it. None the less did
the judges of parliament, and particularly M. Du Lyon, to whom the
case was specially confided, prosecute the trial with relentless
ardor. On the 15th of July, the unfortunate Lhomme, after having
been subjected to torture to extract information respecting his
supposed accomplices, was publicly hung on a gibbet on the Place
Maubert, in Paris. The well-informed Regnier de La Planche (p. 313)
is our authority for the statement that Du Lyon having, at a
supper, a few days later, been called to account for the iniquity
of his decision, made no attempt to defend it, but exclaimed: "Que
voulez-vous? We had to satisfy Monsieur le Cardinal with something,
since we had failed to catch the author; for otherwise he would
never have given us any peace (il ne nous eust jamais donne
relasche)." Still more unreasonable was the infliction of the
death-penalty upon Robert Dehors, a merchant of Rouen, who had
chanced to ride into Paris just as Lhomme was being led to
execution. Booted as he still was, he became a witness of the
brutality with which the crowd followed the poor printer, and
seemed disposed to snatch him from the executioner's hands in order
to tear him in pieces. Indignant at this violation of decency,
Dehors had the imprudence to remonstrate with those about him,
dissuading them from imbruing their hands in the blood of a
wretched man, when their desire was so soon to be accomplished by
the minister of the law. The Rouen merchant little understood the
ferocity of the Parisian populace. The mob instantly turned their
fury upon him, and but for the intervention of the royal archers he
would have met on the spot the fate from which he had sought to
rescue another to whose person and offence he was an utter
stranger. As it was, he escaped instant death only to become a
victim to the perverse ingenuity of the same judges, and be hung on
the same Place Maubert, "for the sedition and popular commotion
caused by him, at the time of the execution of Martin Lhomme, by
means of scandalous expressions and blasphemies uttered and
pronounced by the said Dehors against the honor of God and of the
glorious Virgin Mary, wherewith the said prisoner induced the
people to sedition and public scandals." (See Registres du
parlement, July 13, 15, and 19, 1560, reprinted by Read in "Le
Tigre.")

It is not, perhaps, very much to be wondered at that a pamphlet so
dangerous to have in one's possession should have so thoroughly
disappeared that a few years since not a copy was known to be in
existence. It doubtless fared with the "Tigre" much as it did with
another outspoken libel--"Taxe des parties casuelles de la boutique
du Pape"--published a few years later, of which Lestoile (Read, p.
21) tells us that he was for a long time unsuccessful in the search
for a copy, to replace that which, to use his own words, "I burned
at the St. Bartholomew, _fearing that it might burn me_!"

By a happy accident, M. Louis Paris, in 1834, discovered a solitary
copy that had apparently been saved from destruction by being
buried in some provincial library. The discovery, however, was of
little avail to the literary world, as the pamphlet was eagerly
bought by the famous collector Brunet, only to find a place in his
jealously guarded cases, where, after a fashion only too common in
these days, a few privileged persons were permitted to inspect it
under glass, but not a soul was allowed to copy it. Fortunately,
after M. Brunet's death, the city of Paris succeeded in purchasing
the _seven printed leaves_, of which the precious book was
composed, for 1,400 francs! Even then the singular fortunes of the
book did not end. Placed in the Hotel-de-Ville, this insignificant
pamphlet, almost alone of all the untold wealth of antiquarian lore
in the library, escaped the flames kindled by the insane Commune.
M. Charles Read, the librarian, had taken it to his own house for
the purpose of copying it and giving it to the world. This design
has now been happily executed, in an exquisite edition (Paris,
1875), containing not only the text, illustrated by copious notes,
but a photographic fac-simile. M. Read has also appended a poem
entitled "Le Tigre, Satire sur les Gestes Memorables des Guisards
(1561), "for the recovery of which we are indebted to M. Charles
Nodier. Although some have imagined this to be the original "Tigre"
which cost the lives of Lhomme and Dehors, it needs only a very
superficial comparison of the two to convince us that the poem is
only an elaboration, not indeed without merit, of the more nervous
prose epistle. The author of the latter was without doubt the
distinguished _Francois Hotman_. This point has now been
established beyond controversy. As early as in 1562 the Guises had
discovered this; for a treatise published that year in Paris
(Religionis et Regis adversus exitiosas Calvini, Bezae, et Ottomani
conjuratorum factiones defensio) uses the expressions: "Hic te,
Ottomane, excutere incipio. Scis enim ex cujus officina _Tigris_
prodiit, liber certe tigride parente, id est homine barbaro,
impuro, impio, ingrato, malevolo, maledico dignissimus. Tu te
istius libelli auctorem ... audes venditare?" While an expression
in a letter written by John Sturm, Rector of the University of
Strasbourg, July, 1562, to Hotman himself (Tygris, immanis illa
bellua quam tu _hic_ contra Cardinalis existimationem divulgari
curasti), not only confirms the statement of the hostile Parisian
pamphleteer, but indicates Strasbourg as the place of publication
(Read, pp. 132-139).

The "Epistre envoyee au Tigre de la France" betrays a writer well
versed in classical oratory. Some of the best of modern French
critics accord to it the first rank among works of the kind
belonging to the sixteenth century. They contrast its
sprightliness, its terse, telling phrases with the heavy, dragging
constructions that disfigure the prose of contemporary works.
Without copying in a servile fashion the Catilinarian speeches of
Cicero, the "Tigre" breathes their spirit and lacks none of their
force. Take, for example, the introductory sentences: "Tigre
enrage! Vipere venimeuse! Sepulcre d'abomination! Spectacle de
malheur! Jusques a quand sera-ce que tu abuseras de la jeunesse de
nostre Roy? Ne mettras-tu jamais fin a ton ambition demesuree, a
tes impostures, a tes larcins? Ne vois-tu pas que tout le monde les
scait, les entend, les cognoist? Qui penses-tu qui ignore ton
detestable desseing et qui ne lise en ton visage le malheur de tous
tes [nos] jours, la ruine de ce Royaume, et la mort de nostre Roy?"
Or read the lines in which the writer sums up a portion of the
Cardinal's villainy: "Quand je te diray que les fautes des finances
de France ne viennent que de tes larcins? Quand je te diray qu'un
mari est plus continent avec sa femme que tu n'es avec tes propres
parentes? Si je te dis encore que tu t'es empare du gouvernement de
la France, et as derobe cet honneur aux Princes du sang, pour
mettre la couronne de France en ta maison--que pourras-tu repondre?
Si tu le confesses, il te faut pendre et estrangler; si tu le nies,
je te convaincrai."

A passage of unsurpassed bitterness paints the portrait of the
hypocritical churchman: "Tu fais mourir ceux qui conspirent contre
toy: et tu vis encore, qui as conspire contre la couronne de
France, contre les biens des veuves et des orphelins, contre le
sang des tristes et des innocens! Tu fais profession de prescher de
saintete, toy qui ne connois Dieu que de parole; qui ne tiens la
religion chretienne que comme un masque pour te deguiser; qui fais
ordinaire trafic, banque et marchandise d'evesches et de benefices:
qui ne vois rien de saint que tu ne souilles, rien de chaste que tu
ne violes, rien de bon que tu ne gates!... Tu dis que ceux qui
reprennent tes vices medisent du Roy, tu veux donc qu'on t'estime
Roy? Si Caesar fut occis pour avoir pretendu le sceptre injustement,
doit-on permettre que tu vives, toy qui le demandes injustement?"

With which terribly severe denunciation the reader may compare the
statements of a pasquinade, unsurpassed for pungent wit by any
composition of the times, written apparently about a year later.
Addressing the cardinal, Pasquin expresses his perplexity
respecting the place where his Eminence will find an abode. The
_French_ dislike him so much, that they will have him neither as
master nor as servant; the _Italians_ know his tricks; the
_Spaniards_ cannot endure his rage; the _Germans_ abhor incest; the
_English_ and _Scotch_ hold him to be a traitor; the _Turk_ and the
_Sophy_ are Mohammedans, while the cardinal believes in _nothing_!
_Heaven_ is closed against the unbeliever, the devils would be
afraid to have him in _hell_, and in the ensuing council the
Protestants are going to do away with _purgatory_! "Et tu miser,
ubi peribis?" Copy in State Paper Office (1561).

The peroration of "Le Tigre" is worthy of the great Roman orator
himself. The circumstance that, on account of the limited number of
copies of M. Read's edition, the "Tigre" must necessarily be
accessible to very few readers, will be sufficient excuse for here
inserting this extended passage, in which, for the sake of
clearness, I have followed M. Read's modernized spelling:

"Mais pourquoi dis-je ceci? Afin que tu te corriges? Je connais ta
jeunesse si envieillie en son obstination, et tes moeurs si
depravees, que le recit de tes vices ne te scauroit emouvoir. Tu
n'es point de ceux-la que la honte de leur vilainie, ni le remords
de leurs damnables intentions puisse attirer a aucune resipiscence
et amendement. Mais si tu me veux croyre, tu t'en iras cacher en
quelque tanniere, ou bien en quelque desert, si lointain que l'on
n'oye ni vent ni nouvelles de toy! Et par ce moyen tu pourras
eviter la pointe de cent mille espees qui t'attendent tous les
jours!

"Donc va-t'-en! Descharge-nous de ta tyrannie! Evite la main du
bourreau! Qu'attends-tu encore? Ne vois-tu pas la patience des
princes du sang royal qui te le permet? Attends-tu le commandement
de leur parolle, puisque leur silence t'a declare leur volonte? En
le souffrant, ils te le commandent; en se taisant, ils te
condamnent. Va donc, malheureux, et tu eviteras la punition digne
de tes merites!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 847: Reaching Paris early in May, 1560, Hubert Languet wrote that suspicion was everywhere rife; men of any standing scarcely dared to converse with each other; some great calamity seemed on the point of breaking forth. The king's ministers evidently feared the great cities; so the court proceeded from one provincial town to another. Disturbances in Rouen and Dieppe had frightened the Guises away from Normandy, whither they had intended leading their royal nephew. Letter from Paris, May 15th, Epistolae secr., ii. 50.]

[Footnote 848: "En ce temps (Mars, 1560) furent appelles Huguenots." Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 36.]

[Footnote 849: Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, who, in an appendix, has very fully discussed the whole matter (i. 608-625). There is some force in the objection that has been urged against this view, that, were it correct, Beza, himself a resident of Geneva, could not have been ignorant of the derivation, and would not, in the Histoire ecclesiastique, prepared under his supervision, if not by him, have given his sanction to another explanation.]

[Footnote 850: La Planche, 262; Hist. eccles., i. 169, 170; De Thou, ii. (liv. xxiv.) 766. This is also Etienne Pasquier's view, who is positive that he heard the Protestants called Huguenots by some friends of his from Tours full _eight or nine years_ before the tumult of Amboise; that is, about 1551 or 1552: "Car je vous puis dire que huict ou neuf ans auparavant l'entreprise d'Amboise je les avois ainsi ouy appeller par quelques miens amis Tourengeaux." Recherches de France, 770. This is certainly pretty strong proof.]

[Footnote 851: La Place, 34; Davila, i. 20; Agrippa d'Aubigne, i. 96. See also Pasquier, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 852: Mem. de Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 7. A somewhat similar reason had, in Poitou, caused them, for a time, to be called _Fribours_, the designation casually given to a _counterfeit_ coin of debased metal. Pasquier, 770.]

[Footnote 853: Advertissement au Peuple de France, _apud_ Recueil des choses memorables (1565), 7. Also in the Complainte au Peuple Francois, ibid., p. 10. Both of these papers were published immediately after the Tumulte d'Amboise. The eminent Pierre Jurieu--"le Goliath des Protestants"--tells us that, having at one time accepted the derivation from "eidgenossen" as the most plausible, he subsequently returned to that which connects the word Huguenot with Hugues or Hugh Capet. The nickname confessedly arose, so far as France was concerned, first in Touraine, and became general at the time of the tumult of Amboise, nearly thirty years after the reformation of Geneva. "Qui est-ce qui auroit transporte en Touraine ce nom trente ans apres sa naissance, de Geneve ou il n'avoit jamais este cognu?" Histoire du calvinisme et celle du papisme, etc. Rotterdam, 1683, i. 424, 425.]

[Footnote 854: J. de Serres, i. 67; Pasquier, 771: "Mot qui en peu de temps s'espandit par toute la France."]

[Footnote 855: La Planche, 270. At Amboise, too, so soon as the court had departed, the prisons were broken open, and the prisoners--both those confined for religion and for insurrection--released. The gallows in various parts of the place were torn down, and the ghastly decorations of the castle, in the way of heads and mutilated members, disappeared. Languet, letter of May 15th, Epist. secr., ii. 51.]

[Footnote 856: M. Archinard, conservator of the archives of the Venerable Company of Pastors of Geneva, has compiled from the records a list of 121 pastors sent by the Church of Geneva to the Reformed Churches of France within eleven years--1555 to 1566. Many others have, doubtless, escaped notice. Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 72-76. Cf. also Ib., ix. 294 seq., for an incomplete list of Protestant pastors in France, probably in 1567, from an old MS. in the Genevan library.]

[Footnote 857: The high moral and intellectual qualifications of the Protestant ministers were eulogized by the Bishop of Valence, Montluc, in his speech before the king at Fontainebleau, to which I shall soon have occasion to refer again. "The doctrine, sire," he said, "which interests your subjects, was sown for thirty years; not in one, or two, or three days. It was introduced by three or four hundred ministers, diligent and practised in letters; men of great modesty, gravity, and appearance of sanctity; professing to detest every vice, and, particularly, avarice; fearless of losing their lives in confirmation of their preaching; who always had Jesus Christ upon their lips--a name so sweet that it gives an entrance into ears the most carefully closed, and easily glides into the heart of the most hardened." "Harangue de l'Evesque de Vallence," _apud_ Recueil des choses memorables (1565), i. 290; Mem. de Conde, i. 558; La Place, 55. The eloquent Bishop of Valence must be regarded as a better authority than those persons who, according to Castelnau, accused the Calvinist ministers of Geneva of "having more zeal and ignorance than religion." Mem. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 3.]

[Footnote 858: Calvin, in a letter sent by Francois de Saint Paul, a minister whom he induced to accept the urgent call of the church of Montelimart, dissuaded that church from this step which was already contemplated. Better is it, said he, to increase the flock, and to gather in the scattered sheep, meanwhile keeping quiet yourselves. "At least, while you hold your assemblies peaceably from house to house, the rage of the wicked will not so soon be enkindled against you, and you will render to God what He requires, namely, the glorifying of His name in a pure manner, and the keeping of yourselves unpolluted by all superstitious observances, until it please Him to open a wider door." Lettres francaises (Bonnet), ii. 335, 336. The author of the Histoire eccles. des eglises ref., i. 138, expresses a belief that had such wise counsels been followed, incomparably the greater part of the district would have embraced the Reformation.]

[Footnote 859: La Planche, 284-286.]

[Footnote 860: Letter of Francis II. to Gaspard de Saulx, Seign. de Tavannes, April 12, 1560, _apud_ Negotiations relatives au regne de Francois II., etc. (Collection de documents inedits), 341-343.]

[Footnote 861: With a label attached to their necks bearing this inscription: "Voicy les chefs des rebelles."]

[Footnote 862: La Planche, 286-289.]

[Footnote 863: Letter of the Vte. de Joyeuse to the king, April 26, 1560, _apud_ Neg. sous Francois II., 361-363.]

[Footnote 864: La Planche, 293.]

[Footnote 865: Hence the festival of Corpus Christi witnessed in some places serious riots, especially in Rouen, where a number of citizens of the reformed faith refused to join in the otherwise universal practice of spreading tapestry on the front of their houses when the host was carried by. Houses were broken into, at the instigation of the priests, and near a score of persons killed. Languet, Paris, June 16th, Epist. sec., ii. 59, 60.]

[Footnote 866: La Planche, 294; Hist. eccles., i. 194; Floquet, Hist. du parl. de Normandie, ii. 284, 288, 294, 302-306, etc. At Dieppe the Huguenots had gone so far as to erect, with the pecuniary assistance afforded by Admiral Coligny, an elegant and spacious "_temple_," as the Protestant place of worship was styled. Vieilleville, much to his regret, felt compelled to demolish it (Aug., 1560), for it stood in the very heart of the city. I quote a part of his secretary's appreciative description: "C'estoit ung fort brave edifice, _ressemblant au theatre de Rome qu'on appelle Collisee, ou aux arenes de Nysmes_. On fut _trois jours_ a le verser par terre, et ne partismes de Dieppe que n'en veissions la fin." Mem. de Vieilleville, ii. 448, etc.; Floquet, ii. 318-336.]

[Footnote 867: De Felice, liv. i., c. 12 (Am. ed., p. 111).]

[Footnote 868: See La Planche, 312, 313, and the "Histoire des cinq rois" (Recueil des choses mem), 1598, p. 99, for the punishment of the possessor of a copy of a virulent pamphlet against the cardinal, entitled _Le Tigre_ (see the note at the end of this chapter); and Negociations sous Francois II., 456, for a letter from court ordering search to be made for the author and publisher of the "Complaincte des fideles de France contre leurs adversaires les papistes." "En ung lundy apres Pasques, 15^e du moys, fut affiche devant S. Hilaire un papier estant imprime d'autre impression de Paris, et y avoit a l'intitulation: Les Estats opprimez par la tyrannie de MM. de Guise au roy salut." Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 37. The piece referred to is inserted in the Memoires de Conde, i. 405-410.]

[Footnote 869: La Planche, 299-302. The remonstrance, signed _Theophilus_, which they addressed her, insisted on the ill-success of the persecutions to which for forty years they had been subjected; for one killed, two hundred had joined their assemblies; for ten thousand open adherents, the Reformation had one hundred thousand secret upholders. The Edict of Forgiveness answered no good purpose: "_c'estoit bien peu d'oster pour un instant la douleur d'une maladie, si quant et quant la cause et la racine n'en estoit ostee_."]

[Footnote 870: La Place, 41-45; La Planche, 316, 317; Mem. de Castelnau, l. ii., c. 7; De Thou, ii., liv. xxv. 788-791. I confess, however, that the careful perusal of La Planche's bold speech has nearly convinced me that the ascription of the anonymous "Hist. de l'estat de Fr. sous Francois II." to his pen is erroneous. I shall not insist upon the fact that the description of La Planche as "homme politique plustost que religieux" is inappropriate to the author of this history. But I can scarcely conceive of La Planche correcting errors in his own speech, and not only expressing an utter dissent from the account which he himself gave the queen of the motives that led La Renaudie to engage in the enterprise that had for its object the overthrow of the Guises, but even accusing himself of falling into a grave mistake with regard to the importance of the differences of creed between the Protestants and the Roman Church: "s'abusant en ce qu'il meit en avant des differends de la religion." La Planche had suggested a conference of theologians--ostensibly to make a faithful translation of the Bible, in reality to compare differences--and had expressed the opinion that there would be found less discord than there appeared to be. The condemnation of this view certainly does not mark a man of political rather than religious tendencies! I fear that we must look elsewhere for the author of this excellent history.]

[Footnote 871: It has been ascribed to the virtuous and tolerant Chancellor L'Hospital, who, it is said, drew it up in order to defeat the project of the Guises to introduce the Spanish Inquisition. (La Planche, 305; cf. also De Thou, ii. 781.) But the edict was published _before_ the appointment of L'Hospital, and while Morvilliers, a creature of the Guises, provisionally held the seals after Chancellor Olivier's death; and the spiritual jurisdiction it established differed little in principle from an inquisition. In fact, three of the French prelates, the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Chatillon, had, as we have seen, been constituted a board of inquisitors of the faith; and, soon after the publication of the Edict of Romorantin, the Cardinal of Tournon was set over them as inquisitor-general. The subject has been well discussed by Soldan, Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 338-342. The Duc d'Aumale, in his usually accurate Histoire des Princes de Conde (i. 113), repeats the blunder of La Planche and De Thou.]

[Footnote 872: Recueil des anc. lois fr., xiv. 31-33; La Planche, 305, 306; La Place, 46, 47. It is, of course, "an edict holily conceived and promulgated," in the estimation of Florimond de Raemond, v. 113. The only redeeming feature I can find in it is the article by which malicious informers made themselves liable to all the penalties they had sought to inflict on others.]

[Footnote 873: La Place, 36 (who states that the burning of Du Bourg was an occasion of deep remorse in Olivier's last hours); La Planche, 266; J. de Serres, De statu rel. et reip., i., fol. 35; De Thou, ii. (liv. xxiv.), 775; Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 874: La Planche, 305.]

[Footnote 875: If we may credit that professed panegyrist, Scaevola de St. Marthe, L'Hospital was of an august appearance, of a dignified and tranquil countenance, and, if his intellectual constitution had a philosophic stamp, his features bore a not less remarkable resemblance to the head of the Stagirite as delineated on ancient medals. Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum qui nostra patrumque memoria floruerunt (Ienae, 1696), lib. ii., p. 95.]

[Footnote 876: This remarkable statement is made by Agrippa d'Aubigne, Memoires, 478 (Ed. Pantheon Lit.). He tells us that he had inherited from his father, himself one of the conspirators, the original papers of the enterprise of Amboise. The suggestion was made by a confidant, that the possession of the proof of L'Hospital's complicity would certainly secure him 10,000 crowns, either from the chancellor or from his enemies; whereupon the youth threw all the papers into the fire lest he might in an hour of weakness succumb to the temptation. In his Hist. universelle, i. 95, D'Aubigne makes the same assertion with great positiveness: "L'Hospital, homme de grand estime, luy succeda, quoyqu'il eust este des conjurez pour le faict d'Amboise. Ce que je maintiens contre tout ce qui en a este escrit, pource que l'original de l'entreprise fut consigne entre les mains de mon pere, ou estoit son seing tout du long entre celuy de Dandelot et d'un Spifame: chose que j'ai faict voir a plusieurs personnes de marque."]

[Footnote 877: La Planche, 305; La Place, 38; De Thou, ii. 776; Davila, p. 29. I cannot refrain from inserting La Planche's worthy estimate of his course and its results: "Car pour certain, encores que s'il eust prins un court chemin pour s'opposer virilement au mal, il seroit plus a louer, et Dieu, peut-estre, eust beny sa Constance, si est-ce qu'autant qu'on en peut juger, _luy seul, par ses moderes deportemens a este l'instrument duquel Dieu s'est servy pour retenir plusieurs flots impetueux, ou fussent submerges tous les Francois_." _Ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 878: Throkmorton to Cecil, June 24, 1560, State Paper Office; printed in Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 32, 33.]

[Footnote 879: La Planche, 338-343.]

[Footnote 880: Ibid., 315; De Thou, ii. 787, 788.]

[Footnote 881: The long address delivered to the two brothers at Nerac, and reproduced verbatim by La Planche (318-338), is a very complete summary of the views of the Huguenots at this juncture.]

[Footnote 882: Letter of Cardinal Lorraine to the Bishop of Limoges, French ambassador to Philip the Second, July 28, 1560. The council "we hold to be the sole and only remedy for our ills," is the minister's language. Although the state of affairs was better than it had been, yet "so many persons were imbued with these opinions, that it was not possible to find out on whom reliance could be placed." Negociations sous Francois II., 442-444.]

[Footnote 883: Ibid., _ubi supra_; La Planche, 349; De Thou, ii. 782.]

[Footnote 884: La Planche, _ubi supra_. An assembly of notables was, as the term imports, a body consisting, not of representatives of the three orders, regularly summoned under the forms observed in the holding of the States General, but of the most prominent men of the kingdom, arbitrarily selected and invited by the crown to act as its advisers on some extraordinary emergency. "Telles assemblees," says Agrippa d'Aubigne, "ont este appelees _petits estats_." Hist. univ., i. 96.]

[Footnote 885: "This house is both beautiful and larger than any I had before seen in France or England. I may resemble the state thereof to the honour of Hampton Court, which as it passeth Fontainebleau with the great hall and chambers, so is it inferior in outward beauty and uniformity," etc. The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 67.]

[Footnote 886: Charles Maximilian, now a boy of ten, was the successor of Francis, known as Charles the Ninth. Edward Alexander, Duke of Alencon, had his name changed in 1565 to Henry, and became Duke of Anjou. He was at this time not quite nine years of age. He was subsequently king, under the title of Henry the Third. Hercules became Francis of Alencon in 1565, and was the only one of the brothers that never ascended the throne. He was now a little over six years old.]

[Footnote 887: La Place, 53; La Planche, 350, 351; De Thou, ii. 706; Mem. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8; Davila, 29. Minor discrepancies between these accounts need not be noted.]

[Footnote 888: "As if," says Calvin to Bullinger, "finding himself at his wits' end, he had called in a consultation of state doctors." (Bonnet, iv. 135.)]

[Footnote 889: "Deux requestes de la part des Fideles de France, qui desirent viure selon la reformation de l'Euangile, donnees pour presenter au Conseil tenu a Fontainebleau au mois d'Aoust, M.D.LX." Recueil des choses memorables faites et passees pour le faict de la Religion et estat de ce Royaume, depuis la mort du Roy Henry II. iusques au commencement des troubles. _Sine loco_, 1565, vol. i. 614-619.]