A Short History of France Part 6

Louis died in 1515, also without an heir; and so the crown pa.s.sed to still another collateral branch of the main Capetian line. The Count of Angouleme, cousin of the dead king, was proclaimed Francis I.

The fall of Constantinople in the East, and the discovery of a new world in the West, were changing the whole aspect of Europe. The art of printing, coming almost simultaneously with these transforming events, sent vitalizing currents reaching even to the humblest. France partook of the general awakening and was throwing off the torpor of centuries. New ambitions were aroused, and her slumbering genius began to be stirred. This was a propitious moment for an ambitious young king who aimed not only at being the greatest of military heroes, but also the splendid patron of art and letters, and wisest of men! The role he had set for himself being, in fact, a Charlemagne and a Lorenzo de' Medici in one. All that was needed for success in this large field was ability. Personal valor Francis certainly possessed. His reign opened brilliantly with a campaign in the Italian peninsula, which left him after the battle of Marignano, master of the Milanese and of northern Italy. He need not trouble himself as had his predecessors about recalcitrant and scheming n.o.bles. They had never been heard from since Louis XI. took them in hand. Neither were the States-General going to annoy him by a.s.sertion of rights and demands for reforms.

They too had become almost non-existent; it having been well established that only the direst emergency would ever call them into being again. So kingship held sole and undisputed sway, and Francis was looking about to see where he might make it even stronger.

The residence of the popes, at Avignon, during the period of the Great Schism, had led to the establishment by Charles VII. of an ordinance called the _Pragmatic Sanction_; its object being the limitation of the papal power in France. The pope by this ordinance was cut off from certain lucrative sources of income; to offset which the king was deprived of the right of appointing officers for vacant bishoprics and abbeys.

Francis I. and Leo X. came together, and, after conferring, determined that the Pragmatic Sanction should be repudiated; Leo, because he must increase his revenues, and Francis, because he desired to use appointments to rich vacancies as rewards for his friends. Leo's tastes, as we know, were magnificent, and needed much more money than he could command; a fact which led to grave results, and changed the course of events in the world!

In 1516 Ferdinand I., King of Spain, died, leaving his enormous possessions to his grandson, Charles, a youth not yet twenty. The mother of this boy was Joanna, the insane daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who was married to the son and heir of Maxmilian I., Emperor of Germany.

The young Charles, by the death of his father, had already inherited the Netherlands and Flanders; to which by the death of his maternal grandfather there was now added Spain, the kingdom of Naples, Mexico, and Peru. A heavy enough burden, one would think, for young shoulders.

But it was to become still heavier. In 1519 his other grandfather, Maximilian I., died, leaving the throne of the empire vacant.

This office by ancient custom, established by Charlemagne, was elective, and theoretically was open to any prince in Europe. But with the seven princes known as electors, with whom rested choice of the successor, hereditary claim had great weight. Europe saw with dismay the imminent creation of an empire greater than that of Charlemagne--an empire which would cover a large part of the map of Europe and of America. For none was this so alarming as for France, which would in fact be enveloped upon almost every side by this giant among the nations. A French king would indeed have been dull and spiritless not to realize the magnitude of the danger, and Francis was neither. There was only a youth of nineteen standing between him and the greatest dignity in Europe. It was not alone an opportunity to save France from this overshadowing power, but to reunite the crowns of France and the empire as originally designed by Charlemagne. No role could have better pleased Francis I. He announced himself a claimant for the vacant throne (under the clause opening it to European princes), claiming that his ownership of the adjacent territory of Northern Italy made him the natural successor to the imperial throne.

Then another ambitious young king appeared as another rival claimant, Henry VIII. of England, with his astute Minister Woolsey to fight the diplomatic battles for his master. It was a brilliant game, played by great players for a great stake: Francis lavishly bribing and dazzling by theatrical displays of splendor; Henry arrogant, ostentatious, vain, and Charles silent, inscrutable, cold-blooded, and false, whispering to Woolsey that he might make him pope at the next election. From that moment the powerful influence of the Cardinal was used for this sedate youth, this wise youth, who saw that the fitting place for him (Woolsey) was the chair of St. Peter!

The diplomacy of the boy of nineteen won the prize. The electors gave the crown to Charles V. Leo X. died soon after. Woolsey waited in hourly expectation of the summons to Rome. But it never came!

Then Francis resolved to win by force what he had lost by diplomacy.

Charles succeeded in winning the pope to his side of the contest with the purpose of driving the French out of Italy. The attempt quickly ended in the defeat of the French, and for Francis capture, and a year's imprisonment in Madrid; his release only obtained by abandoning all claims upon Italy; and in 1547 the showy and ineffectual reign of Francis I. was terminated by his death, which occurred almost immediately after that of Henry VIII. in England.

While these events were taking place, a less conspicuous but vastly more significant conflict had developed. In 1517, Martin Luther, the obscure monk, had hurled defiance at the Church of Rome, arraigning Leo X. for corrupt practices; especially the enrichment of the Church by the sale of indulgences. Germany was shaken to its centre by Protestantism, and the reign of Charles V. was to be spent in ineffectual conflict with the Reformation, which would ultimately tear the Empire asunder.

The new heresy had found congenial soil in France. England was openly and avowedly Protestant, while Spain and Italy remained unchangeably Catholic.

For Francis, destined to spend his life in fruitless contest with the more able, wily, and astute Charles V., the religious question upon which Europe was divided meant nothing except at he could use it in his duel with the emperor. He was in turn the ally of Henry VIII. or the willing tool of Charles V. If he needed the English king's friendship, the Protestants had protection. If he desired to placate Charles V., the roastings and torturings commenced again.

In 1547 Francis and Henry VIII. each went to his reward, and a few years later Charles V. had laid down his crown and carried his weary, unsatisfied heart to St. Yuste. The brilliant pageant was over; but Protestantism was expanding.

CHAPTER XI.

The conversion of Henry VIII., because the pope refused to annul his marriage with Catharine, aunt of Charles V., was not the proudest, but one of the most important triumphs of the new faith. Had Catharine's charms been fresher, or Anne Boleyn less alluring, the course of history would have been changed. Henry VIII., as persecutor of heretics, would have found congenial occupation for his ferocious instincts, and the triumph of Protestantism would have been long delayed. But no such cause existed for the success of the Reformation on French soil. The slumbering germs of heresy, left perhaps by Abelard, or by the heretics in Toulouse and Provence, were quickly warmed into life. It may be also that the memory of her desertion by the Church, once her only friend and champion, gave such intensity to the welcome of a "Reformation" by the people. At all events, whatever the explanation, a religious war was at hand which was going to stain the fair name of France more even than the treacheries of her civil war.

The question at issue was deeper than any one knew. Neither Luther nor Leo X. understood the revolution they had precipitated. Protestants and Papists alike failed to comprehend the true nature of the struggle, which was not for supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not whether this dogma or that was true, and should prevail; but an a.s.sertion of the right of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship.

The great battle for human liberty had commenced; the struggle for religious liberty was but the prelude to what was to follow. There was abundant proof later that Protestants no less than Papists needed only opportunity and power to be as cruel and intolerant as their persecutors had been. Before the Reformation was fifty years old, Servetus, one of the greatest men of his age, a scholar, philosopher, and man of irreproachable character, was burned at Geneva for heretical views concerning the nature of the Trinity; Calvin, the great organizer of Protestant theology, giving, if not the order for this odious crime, at least the nod of approval for its commission.

France had known many tragedies. But when Francis, in pursuance of his Italian policy, secured the hand of Catharine de' Medici for his son and heir, Henry II., he prepared the way for the most tragic event in her history. Powerless to win the affection, or even confidence, of Henry while he lived, Catharine remained un.o.bserved; but, as the event proved, not un.o.bservant. Her astute mind had been studying every current in the kingdom.

Two families had come into prominence during this reign which were to play leading parts in the immediate future: the family of Guise, of the house of Lorraine, represented by Francis, Duke of Guise; and that of Chatillon, of which Admiral Coligny was the head, both of whom Catharine hated and had marked for destruction.

Mary, of the house of Guise, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland; and through the powerful influence of the Guises, the brothers of the Scottish queen, a marriage was arranged between her daughter--her most serene little highness, Marie Stuart--and the dauphin, who would some day be Francis II.

In order to be prepared for this high destiny, the little maid when only five years old was brought to the Court of France to be trained under the direct influence of the accomplished queen-mother, Catharine--undoubtedly, although unsuspected then, the worst woman in Europe! Poor little Marie Stuart, predestined to sin and to tragedy!

What could be expected of a woman with the blood of the Guises in her veins, and with Catharine de' Medici as her model and teacher?

In 1559 Henry II. was killed by an accident at a tournament. The marriage of the two children had taken place. The sickly boy, with only a modest portion of intelligence, was Francis II., King of France.

Marie, his beautiful and adored queen, controlled him utterly, and was herself in turn controlled by her uncles of the house of Guise. In fact, the family of Guise, which was the head of the Catholic party in the kingdom, ruled France, with the strange result that if Catharine looked for any allies in her fight with this ambitious family, she must make common cause with the Protestants, led by Admiral Coligny, whom she hated only a little less than the uncles of Marie Stuart.

The princes of the house of Bourbon, a remote branch of the royal family, which, next to Francis, were the nearest to the throne, had been extremely jealous of the growing power of the Guises. Now they saw them, as the advisers of the young king, actually usurping the position which was theirs by right of birth.

Two factions grew out of this feud in the court, and there developed a Bourbon party, and the party of the Guises; one identified with the Protestant and the other with the Catholic cause.

Antony de Bourbon, the head of the family of this name, whether from conviction or from antagonism to the Guises, had openly espoused the Protestant side. It was the rich burghers of the towns, in combination with the smaller n.o.bles, which composed the Protestant party in France.

And although the impelling cause of the great movement was religious, political wrongs had become a powerful contributing cause; as is always the case, the discontented and aggrieved, for whatever reason, casting in their lot with those who had a deeper grievance and a more sacred purpose.

Whether the conversion of the Bourbon prince was of that nature or not, who can say? But the movement swelled, and France was divided into two hostile camps: one under the Protestant banner of Antony de Bourbon, father of Henry of Navarre, and the other under that of the Catholic, Francis, Duke of Guise; and two children were on the throne of France while the ground was trembling beneath their feet with a coming revolution.

Francis I. had been too much occupied with his own plans to take in hand systematically and seriously the prevailing heresy. Henry II., son of Francis, had also temporized with the religious revolt, probably not realizing the powerful element it contained. Now, with the Guises firmly in power, there would be no more half-way measures.

But a crisis was at hand which would change the whole situation. The discovery of a plot to seize the person of the young king and place a Bourbon prince upon the throne, led to a general slaughter. Fresh relays of executioners in Paris stood ready to relieve each other when exhausted, and the Seine was black with the bodies of the drowned.

During this preliminary storm the frail young king, Francis II., suddenly died. Marie Stuart pa.s.sed out of French history, and the power of the Guises was at an end. The fates were certainly fighting on the side of Catharine.

There are hints that the fine Italian hand may be seen in this event which at one stroke removed every obstacle from her path! However this may be, Catharine wasted no regrets upon the death of a son which made her queen regent during the minority of her second son, Charles, now ten years of age (1560).

There was no time to lose. Her control over the feeble Charles IX.

before he reached his majority must be absolute. Every impulse toward mercy must be extinguished.

What can be said of a mother who seeks to exterminate every germ of truth or virtue in her son; who immerses him in degrading vices in order to deaden his too sensitive conscience and make him a willing tool for her purposes? Inheriting the splendid intelligence as well as genius for statecraft of the Medici, nourished from her infancy upon Machiavellian principles, cold and cruel by nature, this Florentine woman has written her name in blood across the pages of French history.

There were two main ends to be kept in view: the destruction of the Guises, and the extermination of the Huguenots, as the Protestants were now called. These were difficult to reconcile, but both must be accomplished.

Coligny, the splendid old admiral and Huguenot, hero of the nation, he, too, must go. And Henry of Navarre, the adored young leader of the Huguenots, of course was high on the list marked for destruction; but there might be other uses for him before that time.

Never had the Huguenots received such gentle treatment. Disabilities were removed and privileges bestowed. Never was the beautiful queen-mother as smiling, gracious, and witty. A letter to her uncle, Pope Innocent III., written, it is said, between a dinner and a masquerade, asked if men might not be good enough Christians even if they did not believe in transubstantiation, and useful subjects even though they could not accept the Apostolic succession!

Then this excellent woman declared her admiration for the intelligence of the Huguenots, whom until now she had believed were mere fanatical enthusiasts. Then Henry of Navarre, the brave, generous, accomplished Protestant leader, was urgently invited to the court, and finally even offered the hand of Margaret of Valois, her daughter, as a compromise which would heal the rivalry between the two faiths.

And so, on the 18th of August, 1572, Notre Dame, grim but splendid, looked down upon the marriage of Margaret and Henry, in the presence of all the leaders of Huguenot and Catholic in France.

The Protestants wept for joy at the reconciliation accomplished by this union. And all were to remain and partake of the week of festivities which were to follow.

Then, the pageant over, a secret council was held in Catharine's apartment in the Louvre, in which her remaining son, Henry, partic.i.p.ated, but from which his brother the king was excluded; some wishing to include the Guises in the approaching ma.s.sacre, some urging that Henry of Navarre be spared, but all agreeing that Coligny must go; it being, in fact, the influence of this magnetic man over the young king which was the danger-point compelling haste and the uncertainty as to what her son might do endangered the success of the whole plot.

Charles, who was now king, was impressible, easily influenced, yet stubborn, intractable, incoherent, pa.s.sionate, and unreliable; sometimes inclining to the Guises, sometimes to Coligny and the Huguenots, and always submitting at last, after vain struggle, to his imperious mother's will, in her efforts to free him from both. We see in him a weak character, not naturally bad, torn to distraction by the cruel forces about him, who when compelled to yield, as he always did in the end, to that terrible woman, would give way to fits of impotent rage against the fate which allowed him no peace.

The time had arrived when Catharine feared the influence of Coligny more than that of the Guises. Brave, patriotic, magnetic, he had succeeded in winning Charles's consent to declare war against Spain.

Philip II. of Spain was Catharine's son-in-law and closest ally. Her entire policy was threatened. At all hazards Coligny must be gotten rid of. The young King of Navarre, adored leader of the Protestants, was a constant menace; he, too, must in some way be disposed of.

There were sinister conferences with Philip of Spain and with his minister, that incarnation of cruelty and of the Inquisition, the Duke of Alva.

To the honor of France it may be said that the initiative, the inception of the horrid deed which was preparing was not French. It was conceived in the brain of either this Italian woman or her Spanish adviser and co-conspirator, the Duke of Alva. We shall never know the inside history of the Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew. It must ever remain a matter of conjecture just how and when it was planned, but the probabilities point strongly one way.