Chapter X: Book I (3)

The confession of faith was composed of forty articles, embracing all the dogmas, considered fundamental in the sixteenth century. God and His word; the Trinity; the fall of man and his state of condemnation; the decree of the Lord towards the elect; gratuitous redemption through Jesus Christ, very God and very man; participation in this grace through the faith given by the Holy Ghost; the characters of the true church; the number and signification of the Sacraments. The Bible was taken as the sole and absolute rule of all truth.

The discipline also contained forty articles. It has been since extended in the synodal assemblies; and it has ended by a division into fourteen chapters or sections, comprising two hundred and twenty articles; but all the chief ideas were in the primitive draft.

We will give a short glance at this ecclesiastical constitution. Wherever there were a sufficient number of the faithful, they were to constitute themselves into a church; that is to say, to name a consistory, appoint a minister, establish the regular celebration of the sacraments and the practice of discipline. Everything was to be begun with this first step.

The consistory was elected at first by the common voice of the people; it was completed afterwards by the suffrages of its own members; but the new selections were always to be submitted for the approval of the flock, and if there were any opposition, the debate was to be settled either at the colloquy or at the provincial synod. To be eligible for the consistory imposed no condition of fortune, or of any other kind.

The election of the pastors was notified to the people in the same way, after having been made by the provincial synod or the colloquy. The newly elected minister preached during three consecutive Sundays. The silence of the people was held to signify their consent. If there were any reclamations, these were carried before the bodies charged with the choice of pastors. There was no further appeal against the voice of the majority.

A certain number of churches formed the conscription of a colloquy. The colloquies assembled twice a year at least. Each church was represented by a pastor and an elder. The office of these companies was to arrange any difficulties that might arise, and generally to provide for whatever was conformable to the welfare of their flocks.

Beyond the colloquies were the provincial synods, also composed of a pastor and an elder of each church. They assembled once in each year at least. They decided upon whatever had not been settled in the colloquies, and upon all the important matters of their province. The number of these synods has varied. Sixteen has been the general number, since the union of Béarn to France.

Lastly, at the summit of the hierarchy was placed the national synod. It was, whenever it was possible, to be convoked year by year; which, however, scarcely ever took place, owing to the misfortunes of the times.

Composed of two pastors, and of two elders of each particular synod, the national synod was the supreme court for all great ecclesiastical matters, and every one was bound to render it obedience. The deliberations commenced by reading the confession of faith and of discipline. The members of the assembly must adhere to the first, but might propose amendments of the other. The presidency belonged of right to a pastor. The duration of the sessions was indeterminate. Before the closing of each session, the province in which the following synod would be holden, was designated.

This constitution had been dictated by Calvin. It attests the power and extent of his genius for organization. Throughout the whole the elective principle was the guarantee of liberty; throughout the whole power supported authority; and thence, order arose from the combination of these two elements. Moreover, an equilibrium between the pastors and the laity was preserved; the periodical and frequent renewal of provincial and national synods was settled; and churches were strongly united without the least trace of primacy. It was a Presbyterian government in its essential features. In these times it would, doubtless, be required that the part of the people should not be limited to a simple right of veto, and that the number of the laity should prevail over that of the pastors in the different degrees of jurisdiction. But if we recur to the ideas which were current in the sixteenth century, it will be seen that this ecclesiastical charter immensely surpassed the civil institutions. The principle of the equality of believers, pastors or laymen, great or little, was at its base, and out of this naturally arose the equality of the citizens; for the State and the Church ever tend to be, in their respective attributes, the counterpart of each other.

We must add, that all these elective bodies, from the consistories to the national synod, formed a sort of jury, which had authority to take cognisance of private errors, and to inflict spiritual penalties. These penalties were individual admonition, remonstrance in consistory, suspension from the Lord’s Supper, and lastly, for great scandals, excommunication and excision from the Church. The heads of the highest must bend like the most humble, under this religious penalty, and, in certain cases, make public confession of their offences. Henry IV., already king of Navarre, submitted to it on more than one occasion.

We are astonished in our times at this interference with private actions; but in those days few people thought of complaining. The ecclesiastical power penetrated without obstacle and without effort into fireside life. It was believed that the religious law ought to inquire into the faults which the civil law could not reach, and for the Reformers it was still more requisite that they should have recourse to this kind of penalty, as they were accused of having left the Romish church only the more unrestrictedly to satisfy their passions.

On the 29th of May, 1559, when the deputies of the first general synod, before separating, mingled their souls in prayer, that they might bless God for the work he had permitted them to accomplish, the French Reformation was constituted.

X.

The Parliament of Paris began to exhibit signs of hesitation before the growing host of the Calvinists. It had split into three parties: the ultra-Catholics, headed by the chief president, Gilles Lemaître, who were bent upon persisting in the old system of persecution; the men of middle course, already styled Politicians, among whom figured Christophe de Harlay, Seguier, and De Thou, the father of the historian, who sought to approximate the two religions by mutual concessions; lastly, the secret Reformers, whose chiefs were Anne Dubourg and Louis Dubourg, who from day to day declared themselves more openly. These divisions produced between the two chambers a diversity of jurisprudence, the great chamber continuing to pursue the heretics with severity, and the Tournelle seeking means to acquit them.

These symptoms of indulgence alarmed the clergy. “If the secular arm fails in its duty,” said the Cardinal de Lorraine to the king, “all the malcontents will throw themselves into this detestable sect; they will destroy the ecclesiastical power, and afterwards it will be the turn of the regal power.”

Henry II. listened to him with greater readiness, because he had just concluded with the king of Spain the shameful peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, when the two monarchs engaged by a secret article, to exterminate heresy; and as a pledge of this treaty, his daughter Elizabeth was to espouse Philip II. It was therefore arranged that the king should go in person to the Parliament, in order to put an end at once to the divisions by an act of authority. It was also, as the cardinal further observed, the most agreeable exhibition to offer to the Spanish ambassadors, who had arrived in Paris to fetch away the betrothed princess, to burn before the people half a dozen Lutheran counsellors. “We must,” to use his expression, “give this junket to these grandees of Spain.”

Henry II. proceeded to hold a bed of justice, on the 10th of August, 1559, and invited the counsellors to give him frankly their advice upon the means of appeasing the religious differences. The chief president, Gilles Lemaître, lauded the zeal of Philip Augustus, who had in one day caused six hundred of the Albigenses to be burned. The men of middle course confined themselves to vague generalities. The secret Calvinists, Anne Dubourg in particular, demanded religious reforms by means of a national council. “Every day,” said he, “we see committed crimes that go unpunished, while new torments are invented against men who have committed no crime. It is not a matter of little importance to condemn those who, in the midst of the flames, invoke the name of Jesus Christ.”

The irritated prince ordered him to be arrested in full Parliament, by the captain of his guards, and said aloud, that he would see him burned with his own eyes. But wounded, by the splinter of a lance, in a tournament, he died a month afterwards; and we are assured that in his last moments he remembered Anne Dubourg with grief, and the other counsellors confined in the Bastille. “They are innocent,” he cried, “and God punishes me for having persecuted them.” The Cardinal de Lorraine hastened to quiet his conscience, by saying that this was a suggestion of the devil.

Anne Dubourg was born, in 1521, at Riom, in Auvergne, and belonged to a family of consideration. His uncle had been chancellor of France. After having studied theology, received orders, and entered the law at Orleans, he occupied, since the year 1557, a seat in the Parliament of Paris. He was a man of great learning, integrity, and devotion to his duties; and the only accusation that could be brought against him was, that he had sided with the new religion.

The death of the king did not suspend his trial. The bishop of Paris had him degraded from his orders, and, contrary to custom, the matter was brought, not before the assembled chambers, but commissioners. Some magistrates would have persuaded him to make a confession of faith in ambiguous terms, so that, without wounding his own conscience, he might satisfy that of the judges. Dubourg refused: he even disavowed his advocate Marillac, who had defended him with equivocal phrases, and he was condemned to be burned alive.

He heard his sentence read without a change of countenance, and prayed God to pardon his judges. “Happen what will,” said he, “I am a Christian; yes, I am a Christian; and I will shout still louder, dying for the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ.”

As the Reformers had tried to provide him with the means of escape, he was inclosed in an iron cage, an old implement of Louis XI.’s fetched from the Bastille. Dubourg’s resignation was not disturbed: he sang the praises of God in this narrow prison.

It was the usage to reserve for grand occasions the execution of criminals of the deepest dye, and that of Anne Dubourg was fixed for the 23rd of December, 1559, the day before Christmas-eve. Six hundred men were put under arms. The crossways of the streets were even inclosed with strong posts and barriers, in order that the place of execution might not be ascertained until the last hour. Dubourg wished to divest himself of his clothes: “My friends,” said he to the people, “I am not here to die like a thief, or a murderer, but for the Gospel.” He was offered a crucifix, but he rejected it, and when suspended on the gibbet he cried: “My God, my God, forsake me not, that I may not forsake Thee.”

Thus died, at the age of thirty-eight, this pious and illustrious magistrate. “His execution,” says Mézeray, “inspired many persons with the conviction that the belief professed by so good and so enlightened a man, could not be evil;”[26] and Florimond de Rémond, then a student, avows that every one in the colleges was moved to tears, that they pleaded his cause after his death, and that this execution did more harm than a hundred ministers could have done with all their preaching.

The year following, the Chancellor Olivétan pronounced the name of Anne Dubourg with despair upon his death-bed; and on the approach of the Cardinal de Lorraine, he said to him: “Ah! Cardinal, thou hast caused the damnation of us all.”

In the midst of these persecutions, the affairs of the nation were daily becoming more critical. The new king, Francis II., was hardly six years old. Feeble in body and mind, his person, according to the energetic expression of an old historian, was exposed to the first occupant. Catherine de Medicis, the Guises, Châtillons, Bourbons, the Constable Anne de Montmorency, all worked to their own advantage this impotent fiction of the royalty of a child, and mingled with the religious discussions, the quarrels of their political ambition. We shall only speak of that which is immediately connected with our subject.

Catherine de Medicis, who had now been in France six-and-twenty years, had brought from the country of Machiavelli the art of dissimulation, for which she had found such ample opportunity of exercise during the long humiliations, to which she had been subjected under the reign of the female favourites of Henry II. Artful and vindictive, licentious without having even the excuse of passion, ambitious of power, as much from the love of intrigue as from the pride of command, she had, nevertheless, abilities of a high order, which, directed to the pursuit of a good object, might have accomplished great designs; but having no longer either faith or moral feeling, and constantly engaged in ruining the authority of others in order to consolidate her own, she by turns embraced and deserted all parties alike. No wife and mother of our kings, Isabeau de Bavière excepted, has done so much injury to France as this Italian.[27]

The Guises, even more than Catherine de Medicis, were during forty years the real leaders of the (Roman) Catholic party in France, and without them, as Mézeray remarks, the new religion would perhaps have become dominant. This family, which was a younger branch of that of the dukes of Lorraine, had only established itself in France since the reign of Louis XII. Claude de Lorraine came hither in 1513, to seek his fortune, _with a valet and a walking-stick_. He had by Antoinette de Bourbon six sons and four daughters, who all succeeded in raising themselves to offices of consideration.

Francis I. distrusted them in the latter days of his life, and counselled his son to keep the Lorraines at a distance; but Henry II. had too little haughtiness of mind and force of character to follow this wise counsel. He allowed these foreigners, who had interests quite distinct from those of his race and kingdom, to get into their hands the public business; and after the accession of Francis II., who espoused their niece Mary Stuart, two years older than himself, the Guises became all-powerful.

The Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, archbishop of Rheims, and the possessor, in ecclesiastical benefices, of a revenue of three hundred thousand crowns (many millions of our present money), had some learning, affable manners, great facility of speech, and much dexterity in the management of men and affairs, a deep policy, and a vast ambition. He aspired to nothing less than the crown of France for his brother, and to the tiara for himself. So, Pius V., somewhat anxious concerning the part he was playing in the Church, habitually called him the pope on the other side of the mountains. For the rest, he was a priest without settled convictions, and half preached the Confession of Augsburg, _to please my good masters the Germans_, as says Brantôme; he was decried for his evil habits, which he did not even care to hide, and raised the hooting of the populace on quitting the dwelling of a courtesan; lastly, he was as pusillanimous in the face of danger, as he was arrogant in prosperity.

His brother, the Duke François de Guise, less informed, and less eloquent, had higher qualities. A great warrior, intrepid and liberal, he had served France nobly at the defence of Metz, the capture of Calais and Thionville, and the victory of Renty. His character was naturally elevated and generous, but irascible, even cruel, when he encountered an obstacle; and as he comprehended nothing of religious controversies or of political diplomacy, he placed his valiant sword at the service of the cardinal.

The two brothers were in a favourable position for reciprocally assisting, without interfering with each other. The one could not hope for the crown of France, nor could the other expect the tiara. The priest gained for their house the support of the churchmen, and the soldier, that of the military. Abroad they were aided by Philip II. and the Holy See, and these foreigners contracted alliances with foreigners, not as subjects, but as sovereigns.

Under Francis II. the cardinal got himself named Superintendent of the Exchequer. The Duke de Guise obtained, notwithstanding the protestations of the Constable, the command-in-chief of the army; and being at the same time grand chamberlain, master of the hounds, grand master, generalissimo, uncle of a king of sixteen, and brother of the cardinal, he wielded an authority at least as great as that of the ancient mayors of the palace.

On the other side were the Bourbons, princes of the blood, but in a distant degree, of narrow fortune, and suspected by the Crown since the treason of the ancient Constable, who had taken arms against his king.

Antoine de Bourbon, the head of his race, had espoused Jeanne d’Albret, who had conferred upon him the title of king of Navarre, without giving him the kingdom. He was an irresolute, indolent prince; and, timid by character, though occasionally courageous, he floated between the two doctrines, sometimes causing the Reformed faith to be preached in Béarn, Saintonge, and Poitou, and going to sing psalms at the Pré-aux-Clercs, in 1558, in spite of the shouts of the Sorbonne; sometimes returning towards the (Roman) Catholic religion and persecuting the faithful. The first and last passion of his life was to recover the kingdom of Navarre, or equivalent domains. He died without succeeding, and this long dream only begat for him the mockery and desertion of every one.

His brother, the prince Louis de Condé, had a more penetrating genius and a more masculine character. Witty, merry, sometimes trifling, but intrepid above all, and loved by the soldiery, he valiantly defended the cause of the Reformers, without ever inspiring them with full confidence. Instructed in the new opinions by his wife and his stepmother, he showed more ambition than religion, and the looseness of his manners has always left a doubt upon the sincerity of his faith.

It may be asked whether the Bourbons, Henry IV. included, did not damage more than profit the French Reformation. They launched it into politics, drove it into the battle-field, dragged it into their particular quarrels; and then, when it had gained them the crown, they denied it.

Another family, less high in rank, but more eminent for its virtues,—that of the Châtillons, served the cause with more fidelity. It consisted of three brothers: Odet de Châtillon, François d’Andelot, and Gaspard de Coligny. Their mother, Louise de Montmorency, sister of the Constable, leaned to the Reformation. She was virtuous, in those times of license, a rare example of chastity. In her dying moments she refused the presence of a priest, saying that God had given her the grace of fearing and loving Him.

François d’Andelot, the youngest of the three brothers, was the first to declare himself frankly for the new religion. Made prisoner in the wars of Italy, and detained in the castle of Milan, he had received some pious books from the hands of Rénée de France. Sent afterwards to Scotland, he had the opportunity of studying more closely the doctrine and practices of the Reformation. He was a brave and loyal knight, without fear or reproach, the worthy successor of Bayard.

Going to Brittany, where the property of his house was situated, he took with him a pastor who preached from town to town, with open doors: an unheard-of thing in 1558. Henry II. reproached him sharply for it. “Sire,” answered D’Andelot, “you must not think it strange that, after doing my duty in your service, I employ the rest of my time for the safety of my soul. Wherefore I supplicate you to leave my conscience safe, and to keep for your service my body and my goods, which are entirely yours.” “But I did not give you that order,” said the king, pointing to the collar about his neck, “to use it thus. You have promised and sworn to go to mass and to follow your religion.” “I did not then know,” replied the knight in his integrity, “what it was to be a Christian, and I would not have accepted it on that condition, had God touched my heart as He has since.”

The king, who could contain himself no longer, threw across the table his plate, which struck the dauphin, and he would have pierced D’Andelot with his sword. He had him imprisoned, and took away from him his commission of colonel-general of the infantry, which was given to Blaise de Montluc.

This matter made a great noise. Calvin wrote to the prisoner to felicitate him on his courage, and Pope Paul IV. was indignant that the offender had not been led straight to execution. The ambassador of France represented to him in vain that it was out of the question to treat a Châtillon in this way, the nephew of the Constable, the brother of the Admiral. The intractable pontiff exclaimed, “A heretic never repents; it is an evil for which there is no remedy but the fire.”

Relations and friends intervened; D’Andelot consented to allow a mass to be said in the chamber of his prison, but without taking any part in it, and he was set at liberty.

Gaspard de Coligny, the greatest layman of the French Reformation, will detain us longer. We shall endeavour above all to describe the religious side of his character, and the details of private life neglected by other historians.

Born at Châtillon-sur-Loing in 1516, Coligny received his education from Nicolas Bérault, a renowned professor of the age, and he exhibited such taste for his studies, that he was compelled to interrupt them, lest he should be turned from the career of arms. At twenty-five he was made colonel-general of the French infantry, and through his regulations he introduced a severe discipline among these bands of mercenaries, who before his time were more like brigands than soldiers. “These ordinances,” says Brantôme, “were the most elegant and the wisest that were ever made in France, and I believe that since they were made, the lives of a million of persons have been preserved, and as much of their goods and faculties; for before there was nothing but pillage, theft, brigandage, ransomings, murders, quarrels, and disorder among these bands. This, then, is the obligation the world owes to this eminent person.”[28]

At what time Coligny made the first step towards the new doctrine is not known. From the year 1555, we find him seconding the enterprise of the Chevalier de Villegagnon, for founding a colony of French Reformers in Brazil. The Admiral, who perceived in the proposal the twofold advantage of opening a place of retreat for the persecuted people, and of enriching his country with a colonial establishment, gave Villegagnon two ships with a sum of ten thousand livres: the expedition, however, did not succeed.

Taken prisoner by the Spaniards after the disastrous battle of Saint Quentin, he asked for a Bible and other religious books. He gave himself wholly up to this study, and it was then that he seems to have acquired firm and deep convictions upon the principles of the Reformation.

When he had paid his ransom, he retired to his manor of Châtillon-sur-Loing; and wishing to apply himself to religious matters, he resigned to his brother D’Andelot, with the king’s permission, the appointment of colonel-general of the infantry. He also gave up in favour of his cousin, the Marshal de Montmorency, son of the Constable, the government of Paris and the Isle of France, and besought Henry II. in the most earnest manner, to designate a successor for his government of Picardy. “All which from that time,” says the author of the _Mémoires de Coligny_, “led many to suspect that he had changed his religion: it being true that he made it evident his mind was altogether drawn off from all coveting of honour and power.”[29]

Yet this is the man, whom several historians have accused of taking up arms and fomenting rebellions from a spirit of ambition! History thus written is one of the darkest shames of humanity.

Coligny was encouraged in his pious resolutions by Charlotte de Laval, his wife, who never ceased to invite him to declare himself openly. “Wherefore the Admiral, seeing himself pressed by her so often and with so much affection, resolved to tell her once for all, how it really was with him, representing in the fullest manner that, for many years, he had neither seen nor heard say of any one, whether in Germany or in France, who had made open profession of the religion, that they had not been overwhelmed with evils and calamities; that by the edicts of Francis I. and of Henry II., rigorously observed by the Parliament, those who were convicted were to be burned alive by a slow fire in public, and their property confiscated to the king; that notwithstanding, if she were bent so confidently upon not refusing the condition common to those of the (Reformed) religion, he on his part would not be found wanting in his duty.”[30]

Charlotte de Laval having answered that this had been the lot of true Christians in all ages, Coligny hesitated no longer. He professed his creed before those who came to visit him, exhorted his servants to follow his example, gave them the Scriptures to read, engaged men of piety to govern his children, and entirely reformed the habits of his house. He also began to frequent the meetings, but he did not participate yet in the Supper, having doubts upon this matter. He had discussed the point with learned ministers, asking for explanations upon the real presence and other similar subjects, without having seen his way clear in this doctrine.

One day, therefore, being at a meeting at Vatteville, he rose, when the Supper was about to be celebrated; and after having beseeched the congregation not to take offence at his infirmity, he invited the minister to explain himself a little more at length upon the matter. “The Admiral, instructed by his discourse, first returned thanks to God, and from that time resolved to participate in this sacred and holy mystery on the first day of its celebration. The news of this having been spread throughout France, it is impossible to describe the joy and consolation all the churches thence received.”[31]

He persevered during his whole life in his pious habits, and practised them more freely, as the liberty of the believers gradually enlarged. “As soon as he left his bed, early in the morning, having taken his dressing-gown and knelt with all his household, he himself repeated prayers in the customary form of the churches of France; after which, pending the interval before the hour of preachment, which took place every second day with psalm-singing, he gave audiences to the deputies from the churches who had been sent to him, or occupied himself on public matters, of which he continued still to treat awhile after the sermon, until dinner-hour.

“Standing at the table, with his wife by his side, a psalm was sung, if there had been no preaching, and then followed the ordinary benediction: of which an infinity, not only of Frenchmen, but of German captains and colonels, can bear testimony of his having kept this observance, without a single intermission, not only in his house and at his ease, but also when with the army. The cloth having been removed, he, rising with all present, then returned thanks himself, or had them returned by his minister.”

The same thing was practised at supper; and perceiving that all his household could not without inconvenience be present in the evening at bedtime, he ordered that every one should come at the conclusion of supper, and that when the psalms had been sung, prayers should be said. And it would not be easy to say how many of the French nobility began to establish in their families this devout rule of the Admiral, who often exhorted them to the true practice of piety, saying that it was not enough that the father of a family lived holily and religiously, if he did not by his example induce others to follow the same rule.

“When it was near the time of supper, he summoned all his people, representing to them that he would not have to render to God an account of his own life only, but also of their conduct, and he reconciled them together, if there had happened to be any dissension among them.”

“He was of the middle height, his limbs were well-proportioned, his countenance calm and serene, his voice soft and pleasing, but rather slow and hesitating, his complexion clear, his carriage and demeanour grave, yet full of grace and kindness. Of wine, he drank very little; he ate sparingly, and slept, at the most, but seven hours.”[32]

The character that Gaspard de Coligny displayed in public affairs, is familiar to all. Endowed with qualities the most diverse, and of the highest order, severe toward himself indulgent to others, never inflated by prosperity nor cast down by misfortune, a lover of his country, devoted to his king in whatever did not contravene his conscience, the most illustrious statesmen, as well as the most able captains, have esteemed it an honour to be compared with him. Perhaps he had defects in these qualities. He appeared to be sometimes wanting in resolution, because he was too loyal to pursue to the utmost his advantages against royalty, and to be sometimes wanting in foresight, because he suspected with difficulty in others that perfidy which he found not in his own heart.

If we search in times near our own, and in a different system of things, for a parallel character with his, we shall, doubtless, pronounce the name of General Lafayette. The man of the sixteenth century and he of the eighteenth had a full belief in the justice of their cause. Each made the most generous sacrifices to it, and to the end adhered to it with the most unshaken constancy. Both had in their hands, on many occasions, the greatest interests of the state. Both were held to be the most honourable persons of their age. But Lafayette had the popular masses with him; Coligny had against him three-fourths of France; and also, with a higher political and military genius, he had less success.

The third brother, Odet de Châtillon, was the eldest of the family. Made by Clement VII. a cardinal at seventeen, he demanded reforms without completely adopting the Reformation. He ended by marrying a lady of a noble house, Isabelle de Hauteville, who was styled _Madame la Cardinal_, or _Madame la Comtesse de Beauvais_, when she took her seat in the apartments of the court in the quality of wife of a peer of France: a curious singularity, even in that time! Odet de Châtillon died in England some years after, being poisoned by one of his servants. Brantôme and De Thou speak in high terms of his judgment and integrity.

XI.

Catherine de Medicis had expressed in her days of disappointment some sentiments favourable to the Reformation, and those of the (new) religion supposed at first that she would lend them her support with her son Francis II. Coligny and other Calvinist lords wrote to her that they hoped to find in her a second Esther. But her favourable disposition was only apparent. “I comprehend nothing of this doctrine,” she would say; “what enlisted my sympathy for them, was rather my woman’s pity and compassion than a desire to be informed if their doctrine were true or false.”

In concert with the queen-mother and the court of Madrid, the Guises held the Bourbons in the background, and sent forth new edicts for exterminating heretics. In each Parliament _chambres ardentes_ were instituted, so called because they condemned to the fire without pity, all those who were accused of the crime of heresy. There was a vast system of terror, where even the shadow of justice no longer appeared. Delations, confiscations, pillages, sentences of death, atrocious executions—the same scenes affrighted in the beginning of 1560, the principal towns of France,—Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyons, Grenoble, Poitiers, and their dependent provinces.

At Paris, the commissaries of the quarters made daily visits to the suspected houses. One Démochères, or Mouchy, who has given the French language the term of _mouchard_ (spy), took the field with a band of wretches, whose object was to surprise the heretics eating meat on the prohibited days, or assembling in meetings. They kept particular watch on the Faubourg Saint Germain, which at that time received the name of Little Geneva.

Many persons were seized and maltreated. Those, who were able to fly, quitted the place, leaving furniture, money, provisions, all their goods, at the mercy of the bandits, who were intrusted with the office of serjeants; and houses were pillaged and sacked, according to the relation of Theodore de Bèze, as in a town taken by assault; the rabble gleaned and devastated what the first plunderers had omitted to take. “But what was most to be deplored,” adds this historian, “was to see the poor little children, who had no dwelling but the flagstones, crying, ahungered, in the most piteous manner, and begging about the streets, without any one daring to relieve or shelter them, for fear of falling into the like danger; so that they were less cared for than dogs.”[33]

Abominable contrivances had been put to work to fan the fury of the people of Paris. There may be still seen, in old collections, engravings which represent the heretics slaying priests with the arquebuse, casting monks into the water, slaughtering children, strangling women and old men, and persons were posted about the public squares to comment upon these infamies.

The people answered these dastard provocations by erecting images of the Virgin at the corners of the streets. They scrutinized the countenances of the passengers, and woe to him who did not lift his hat! woe to him who refused to put a piece of money into the trunks, or _épargne-mailles_, which were held out to him in order to provide for the payment of the tapers! The shout of “A heretic!” was raised; he was dragged to the Châtelet, and the prisons were so crowded that it was necessary to hurry the executions, that new victims might be accommodated.

One trait will depict the state of feeling. Two miserable apprentices, who had been won over, declared that turpitudes were committed in the secret meetings of the Calvinists. The Cardinal de Lorraine went straight to relate this to the queen-mother, aggravating his recital with all the abominations with which in former times the Gnostics, the Mersalians, the Borborites, and the Manichæans, had been reproached, so that the Reformers might seem to have combined, as in a common sewer, the vices of every age.

Among the persons mentioned, were the wife and two daughters of a celebrated advocate of Paris. They voluntarily gave themselves up to justice, preferring death to dishonour. They were confronted with the two apprentices, who coloured, stammered, and so contradicted themselves in their statements, that it became evident they had invented an execrable lie. Some indignant magistrates were for imprisoning them instead of the outraged women. Just the contrary happened: the calumniators were absolved, and the females were sent back to their dungeons.

At the same time the Guises created other malcontents, who made an approach to the Calvinists, whence resulted the enterprise known by the name of the Conspiracy of Amboise.

Many gentlemen had come to the court to claim compensation for their blood spilled in the king’s service, or for their properties, which had been despoiled in these times of confusion and anarchy. The Cardinal de Lorraine, dreading the presence of so many soldiers, caused a proclamation to be published, which commanded all the petitioners, of whatever rank, to quit the place within twenty-four hours, under pain of death. A gibbet was even erected at the gates of the castle, to confirm the menace. The gentlemen departed, deeply angered at an affront, which no king of France had ever passed upon his brave nobility.

The war began by pamphlets, in which the Lorraines were accused of having usurped the rights of princes of the blood, of keeping the crown in pupilage, although they were foreigners, and of treading underfoot all the ancient laws of the kingdom. “France can abide it no longer,” is the language of one of these pamphlets, “and demands the convocation of the States-General to reduce these affairs to order.”

The malcontents soon passed from words to acts. Those of the religion felt scruples. Could they have recourse to force to obtain redress for their grievances? They consulted the divines of Switzerland and Germany, who replied that it was lawful to oppose the government usurped by the Lorraines, provided one of the legitimate chiefs, namely, a prince of the blood, were at their head, and the support of the States-General were secured.

Notwithstanding this, the greater number of the Reformed refused to participate in this enterprise, in which, says Brantôme, “_there was not less discontent than Huguenotism_.” Coligny was not initiated into it, and those who were concerned, had expressly reserved the person and authority of the king. They proposed nothing more than to expel the Lorraines, and to replace the government of France in the hands of French princes. Louis de Condé was the invisible or _mute_ chief of the conspiracy; La Renaudie, who represented the political malcontents, rather than the religious malcontents, was its visible chief.

Informed of the plot, through the treachery of the advocate Des Avenelles, the Guises hastened from the town of Blois, and shut themselves up with Francis II. in the Château d’Amboise. The poor young king said to them, weeping: “What have I done to my people that they thus pursue me? I will hear their complaints, and redress them. I should wish that, for a time, you would absent yourselves, that I might see whether it is you or me against whom they rage.” The Lorraines took good care not to accede to this advice; for, once out of the court, they would have seen the whole nobility of France rise to prevent their return.

In the first moments of his fear, the Cardinal de Lorraine had sent to the Parliament an ordinance of amnesty, from which the preachers, and those who had conspired under pretext of religion, alone were excepted. But when he was certain of triumph, he made his revenge an even balance against his terror, and it was terrible. Twelve hundred of the conspirators perished at Amboise. The public place was covered with gallows; blood flowed in streams through the streets. No inquiry, no form of trial, was permitted; and as there were not executioners enough, the prisoners were thrown by hundreds, tied hand and foot, into the waves of the Loire. This same river was destined to engulf other victims: across the abyss of centuries, the Cardinal Charles de Lorraine and Carrier de Nantes may shake hands.

There was worse than this done in 1560. The Cardinal reserved the chiefs for after dinner, as Regnier de la Planche tells us, that he might afford a pastime to the ladies, whom he perceived to be weary of their long stay in this fortress. The queen-mother and the courtiers placed themselves at the windows, _as if they were about to witness some mummery, or jugglers show_. “And the Cardinal pointed out to them the sufferers, with all the signs of a man greatly pleased, that he might so much the more animate the prince against his subjects.”[34]

Many of the condemned displayed wonderful firmness. A gentleman named Villemongis, having dipped his hands in the blood of his companions, raised them to heaven, crying: “Lord, this is the blood of Thy children unrighteously spilled: Thou wilt avenge it.”

The Baron de Castelnau, who, having been taken by the Spaniards in the Flemish wars, had spent, like the Admiral Coligny, the long days of his captivity in reading the Bible, was examined in the prison of Amboise by the Guises and the Chancellor Olivier. The latter inquired of him, mockingly, what it was that could have made, of a soldier, so learned a divine. “When I came to see you on my return from Flanders,” said Castelnau, “I told you how I had passed my time. You approved of it then, and we were good friends. Why are we not so now? It is that, being then disgraced and out of favour, you spoke with sincerity. To-day, in order to please a man whom you despise, you are a traitor to your God and your conscience.” The Cardinal wished to come to the aid of the Chancellor, saying that it was he who had fortified him in the faith, and he set himself to expound a controversial thesis. Castelnau appealed to the duke François de Guise, who answered that he understood nothing about it. “Would to Heaven it were otherwise!” cried the prisoner; “for I esteem you well enough to think that if you were as enlightened as your brother, you would follow better things.”

Having been condemned to death for treason: “I ought, then,” said he, with bitterness, “to have said the Guises were kings of France.” And bending his head to the axe, he appealed from the injustice of man to the justice of his Maker.

These barbarous executions inflamed the hatred of the parties, and opened the door to civil war. The conspiracy of Amboise became popular among the Reformers. Brantôme relates, that many said, “Yesterday, we belonged not to the conspiracy, and we would not have been of it for all the gold in the universe; to-day, we would be so for the smallest coin, and we say that the enterprise was good and holy.”

The Lorraines, however, endeavoured to turn the affairs of Amboise to the profit of their ambition. On the 17th of March, the Duke de Guise had himself named lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Francis II. promised to comply with everything that his uncle might do, order, and execute. This was to abdicate the throne; or, to speak more correctly, to replace fiction by reality.

The Cardinal de Lorraine even ventured upon re-attempting his favourite project of establishing the Inquisition in France, as in Spain. He had already obtained the adhesion of the privy council, and drawn the reluctant consent of the queen-mother. But the blow was warded off by the Chancellor Michel de l’Hospital, who procured, in the month of May, 1560, the adoption of the edict of Romorantin, by which he restored to the bishops the cognizance of the crime of heresy. This edict was prodigal of the most cruel penalties; but, at least, the foot of the inquisitor did not contaminate the soil of France.

XII.

This same year, 1560, so full of violence and blood, witnessed a new step of the French Reformation—the establishment of public worship. This was in the nature of things. When towns, and nearly entire provinces, had embraced the faith of the Reformers, secret meetings became impossible. A whole people does not shut itself up in forests and caverns to invoke its God. From whom, moreover, should it hide itself? From itself? The idea is absurd.

Not only did necessity compel this step on the part of the Reformers; they were also driven to it by the calumnies, with which their secret meetings were attacked. What better means had they of convicting their enemies of untruth, than by assembling in the light of day, and by saying: “Come and see?”

Thus the primitive Christians had come out of the Catacombs, in spite of the edicts of the emperors, as soon as they had become numerous. The same causes produce ever the same effects.

Calvin, and other prudent men, without absolutely disapproving of these manifestations, foresaw more clearly the results, and gave the counsel of caution. But the popular impulse was too strong. Nîmes, Montpellier, Aigues-Mortes, set the example, and the public worship soon spread far and near through Languedoc, Dauphiny, Provence, Béarn, Guienne, Saintonge, Poitou, and Normandy.

Being informed of this decision by the Count de Villars, the Marshal de Termes, and the other governors of the provinces, the Guises replied that the preachers should be hanged without trial, that criminal instructions should be taken against the Huguenots, who attended the preachings, and that “_the country must be swept clean of this multitude of rabble, who lived like the Genevese_.” These orders were not strictly executed, nor could they be so. The Lorraines did not recognise the difference of the times: what was possible against a few thousand obscure sectarians without credit, was no longer possible before millions of proselytes, among whom were numbered more than half the great families of the kingdom.

In some places in Dauphiny, at Valence, at Montélimart, at Romans, those of the religion appropriated the (Roman) Catholic churches to their use; another imitation of the ancient Christians, who had invaded the temples of Paganism. This was also inevitable, in the places where the population had wholly changed their doctrine. The stones of the sanctuary belong to a religion only so long as it is believed in; if the people give it credence no longer, those stones become its property again, and the people reconsecrates them to its new worship.

The Duke de Guise felt so much the more disappointed at the state of affairs in Dauphiny, because he was the governor of that province. The enterprises of the heretics were in his eyes so many personal affronts, and he despatched one Maugiron, who surprised the towns of Valence and Romans, gave them up to pillage, hanged the principal inhabitants, and decapitated two ministers, with this inscription suspended from their necks: “_These are the chiefs of the rebels._” These atrocities provoked reprisals. Two gentlemen of the religion, Montbrun and Mourans, made incursions into Dauphiny and Provence, at the head of armed bands, sacked the churches, maltreated the priests, who had urged the slaughter of the Reformers, and celebrated their worship sword in hand.

Such a state of things could not long exist. It was neither peace nor war, neither the freedom of (the two) religions, nor the absolute domination of one alone. A remedy must be found, or the whole kingdom would be given up to complete anarchy, and the king’s council therefore resolved to convoke the assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau. The Guises consented to this measure with reluctance; but, alarmed themselves at the dangers of a situation they could no longer direct, they yielded to the influence of the politicians, or _tiers-parti_, which had begun to be formed under the direction of the Chancellor L’Hospital.

The 21st of August, 1560, had been fixed for the opening of the assembly. The young king took his seat on the throne, in the great hall of the palace of Fontainebleau, having near him his wife, Mary of Scotland, the queen-mother, and his brothers. Cardinals, bishops, members of the privy council, knights of the order, masters of the requests, the dukes of Guise and Aumale, the Constable, the Admiral, the Chancellor, all were there, except the Bourbon princes, who, fearing a snare, had refused to be present.

The Duke de Guise gave an account of the administration of the army, the Cardinal de Lorraine of that of the finances. But, notwithstanding the importance of these matters, the Notables bestowed little attention upon them: they felt that the sole great affair of the moment was the religious question.

Coligny had promised the Reformers to give the signal. On a sudden, he rose, approached the throne, made a respectful obeisance, and presented two petitions, one to the king, the other to the queen-mother bearing this inscription: “_The supplication of those, who, in divers provinces, invoke the name of God according to the rule of piety._” All present were astonished at such boldness; for the penalty of death hung always over the head of the heretics. But the king, François II., who could not have been taught his lesson beforehand, on this emergency graciously received the petitions, and handed them to be read, to his secretary.

The faithful attested that their faith was that of the creed of the Apostles, that they had always acted as loyal subjects of the king, and that they had been most shamefully calumniated by the accusation of being fautors of disturbance and sedition. “The Gospel, which we profess, teaches us just the contrary,” said they; “and we even do not hesitate to confess, that we never understood so well our duty towards your majesty as we have understood it by means of the holy doctrine that is preached to us.” In conclusion, they asked permission to meet in open day, and submitted to be treated as rebels, if they should thenceforth be found meeting by night, or unlawfully.

It was remarked, that these documents were unsigned. “It is true,” answered the Admiral; “but give us leave to assemble, and, in one day, I will bring fifty thousand signatures from the province of Normandy alone.” “And I,” interrupted the Duke de Guise, in an arrogant tone, “will find a hundred thousand who will sign the reverse with their blood.”

The debates were resumed on the 23rd of August.

Two prelates—it is a pleasure to state it—Jean de Montluc, bishop of Valence, and Charles de Marillac, archbishop of Vienne, proposed means of conciliation. Both had filled embassies in Italy, and visited the Protestant countries. It is a memorable fact, that the bishops of France, who had compared Rome and the Reformation, should have generally inclined to the new ideas!

Jean de Montluc depicted with energy the disorders which filled the Church. He compared the Calvinist ministers,—lettered, diligent men, having always the name of Jesus Christ on their lips, fearing not to die to confirm their doctrine,—to the (Roman) Catholic priests; and at this point he pronounced words, which deserve to find a place in history.

“The bishops (I speak of the greater number) have been idlers, having no fear of giving account to God of the flock intrusted to their charge, and their chief care has been to preserve their revenue, and to abuse it in foolish and scandalous expenses; so true is this, that we have seen forty residing in Paris, while the fire was blazing in their dioceses; and at the same time we see bishoprics given over to children and ignorant persons, who have neither the will, nor the knowledge, to uphold their condition. The ministers of this sect have not failed to show this to those, who were willing to listen to them.

“The curates are ignorant, greedy, busy with everything but their duties, and, for the most part, have procured their benefices by illicit means. And at a time which should call to our assistance men of learning, virtue, and strong zeal, as many double crowns as the bankers have sent to Rome, so many curates have they sent to us.

“The cardinals and the bishops have made no difficulty of conferring benefices upon their major-domos, and, what is more, upon their valets, cooks, barbers, and lackeys. The common priests have by their avarice, ignorance, and dissolute life, rendered themselves odious and despised by all the world. Such are the charming remedies that have been used to procure peace for the Church!”

Montluc suggested two means of resolving the existing difficulties: one was to preach every day before the king, the queen, and the lords of the court, and to replace the “_foolish songs_” of the maids of honour by the Psalms of David; the other, to convoke, without delay, a universal free council, and, if the pope refused, a national council.

The Archbishop Marillac uttered the same complaints, supported the advice of Montluc, and proposed to decide, moreover, that nothing should be done in the Church for money, seeing that it is not lawful to make merchandise of spiritual things.

The next day, August 24th, it was the turn of the Admiral Coligny to speak. He required, like the two bishops, the convocation of a free council, either general or national, and added that permission should be given in the meanwhile to those of the religion to meet for the worship of God. “Give them churches, or other edifices in each place” said he, “and send thither people to see that nothing is done against the authority of the king and the public tranquillity. If you were to act in this way, the kingdom would be peaceable directly, and the subjects content.”