History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 48

The session opened with brief speeches delivered by Francis and his mother, setting forth the object of this extraordinary convocation, but referring their auditors to the chancellor and to the king's uncles for further explanations. Chancellor L'Hospital was less concise. He entertained the a.s.sembly with a lengthy comparison of the political malady to a bodily disease,[888] p.r.o.nouncing the cure to be easy, if only the cause could be detected. He closed by a.s.signing a somewhat singular reason for summoning but two of the three orders of the state.

The presence of the _people_, he said, was in no wise necessary, _inasmuch as the king's sole object was to relieve the third estate_.

Because, forsooth, the poor people--bowed down to the earth with taxes and burdens, which the _n.o.blesse_ would not touch with one of their fingers--was the party chiefly interested in the results of the present deliberations, it was quite unessential that its complaints or requests should be heard! The Duke of Guise and his brother, the cardinal, next laid before the a.s.sembly an account of their administration of the army and finances; and the first day's session ended with the pleasant announcement that the royal revenues annually fell short of the regular expenses by the sum--very considerable for those days--of two and one-half millions of livres.

[Sidenote: Coligny speaks and presents two pet.i.tions.]

When next the notables met, two days later, the king formally proposed a free discussion of the subject in hand. The youngest member of the privy council was about to speak, when Gaspard de Coligny arose, and, advancing to the throne, twice bowed humbly to the king. By the royal orders, he said, he had lately visited Normandy and investigated the origin of the recent commotions. He had satisfied himself that they were owing to no ill-will felt toward the crown; but only to the extreme and illegal violence with which the inhabitants had been treated for religion's sake. He had, therefore, believed it to be his duty to listen to the requests of the persecuted, who offered to prove that their doctrines were conformable to the Holy Scriptures and to the traditions of the primitive church, and to take charge of the two pet.i.tions which they had drawn up and addressed to his Majesty and the queen mother.

They were without signatures; for these could not be affixed without the royal permission previously granted the reformed to a.s.semble together.

But, with that permission, he could obtain the names of fifty thousand persons in Normandy alone. In answer to Coligny's prayer that the king would take his action in good part, Francis a.s.sured him that his past fidelity was a sufficient pledge of his present zeal; and commanded L'Aubespine, secretary of state, to read the papers which the admiral had just placed in his hands.

[Sidenote: The pet.i.tions are read.]

[Sidenote: They ask for liberty of worship.]

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

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

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

[Sidenote: The remedy prescribed.]

The fearlessness of the admiral, however, kindled to a brighter flame the courage of others. Strange as it may appear, toleration and reform found their warmest and most uncompromising advocates on the episcopal bench.[891] Montluc, Bishop of Valence, drew a startling contrast between the means that had been taken to propagate the new doctrines, and those by which the attempt had been made to eradicate them. For thirty years, three or four hundred ministers of irreproachable morals, indomitable courage, and notable diligence in the study of the Holy Scriptures, had been attracting disciples by the sweet name of Jesus continually upon their lips, and had easily gained over a people that were as sheep without a shepherd. Meanwhile, popes had been engrossed in war and in sowing discord between princes; the ministers of justice had made use of the severe enactments of the kings against heresy to enrich themselves and their friends; and bishops, instead of showing solicitude for their flocks, had sought only to preserve their revenues. Forty bishops might have been seen at one time congregated at Paris and indulging in scandalous excesses, while the fire was kindling in their dioceses.[892] The inferior clergy, who bought their curacies at Rome, added ignorance to avarice.[893] The ecclesiastical office became odious and contemptible when prelates conferred benefices on their barbers, cooks, and footmen. What must be done to avert the just anger of G.o.d?

Let the king, in the first place, see that G.o.d's name be no longer blasphemed as heretofore. Let G.o.d's Word be published and expounded. Let there be daily sermons in the palace, to stop the mouths of those who a.s.sert that, near the king, G.o.d is never spoken of. Let the singing of psalms take the place of the foolish songs sung by the maids of the queens; for to prohibit the singing of psalms, which the Fathers extol, would be to give the seditious a good pretext for saying that the war was waged not against men, but against G.o.d, inasmuch as the publication and the hearing of His praises were not tolerated. A second remedy was to be found in a universal council, or, if the sovereign pontiff continued to refuse so just a demand, in a national council, to which the most learned of the new sect should be offered safe access. As to punishments, while the seditious, who took up arms under color of religion, ought to be repressed, experience had taught how unavailing was the persecution of those who embraced their views from conscientious motives, and history showed that three hundred and eighteen bishops at the Council of Nice, one hundred and fifty at Constantinople, and six hundred and thirty at Chalcedon, refused to employ other weapons, against the worst of convicted heretics, than the word of G.o.d. Montluc closed his eloquent discourse by opposing the proposition to grant the right of public a.s.sembly, because of the dangers to which it might lead; but advocated a wise discrimination in the punishment of offenders, according to their respective numbers and apparent motives.[894]

[Sidenote: Address of Archbishop Marillac.]

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

[Sidenote: The States General must be called.]

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

[Sidenote: Speech of Admiral Coligny.]

Such was "the learned, wise, and Christian harangue," as the chronicler well styles it, of "an old man eloquent," whom, like another Isocrates, "the dishonest victory" of his country's real enemies was destined to "kill with report." The profound impression it made was deepened by the speech of Admiral Coligny, whose turn it was, on the next day (the twenty-fourth of August), to announce his sentiments, he declared himself ready to pledge life and all he held most dear, that the hatred of the people was in no wise directed against the king, but against his ministers, whom he loudly blamed for surrounding their master with a guard, as though he needed this protection against his loyal subjects.

Supporting the proposition of the Archbishop of Vienne for a.s.sembling the States General, the admiral advocated, in addition, the immediate dismissal of the guard, in order to remove all jealousy between king and people, and the discontinuance of persecution, until such time as a council--general or national--might be a.s.sembled. Meanwhile, he advised that the requests of the reformed, whose pet.i.tions he had presented, be granted; that the Protestants be allowed to a.s.semble for the purpose of praying to G.o.d, hearing the preaching of His word, and celebrating the holy sacraments. If houses of worship were given them in every place, and the judges were instructed to see to the maintenance of the peace, he felt confident that the kingdom would at once become quiet and the subjects be satisfied.[898]

[Sidenote: Rejoinder of the Duke of Guise.]

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Results of the a.s.sembly of Fontainebleau.]

[Sidenote: The States General to be convened.]

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

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

[Sidenote: New alarms.]

[Sidenote: Antoine and Conde summoned to court.]

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

[Sidenote: Philip adverse to a national council.]

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

Nor was his Catholic Majesty reluctant to grant help--at least on paper.

But he accompanied his promises with advice. In particular, he sent Don Antonio de Toledo to dissuade the French government from holding a national council in Paris for the reformation of religion, as he understood it was proposed to do during the coming winter. This, he represented, would be prejudicial to their joint interests; "for, should the French alter anything, the King of Spain would be constrained to admit the like in all his countries." To which it was replied in Francis's name, that "he would first a.s.semble his three estates, and there propone the matter to see what would be advised for the manner of a calling a general council, not minding _without urgent necessity_ to a.s.semble a council national." As to the Spanish help, conditioned on the prudence of the French government, the Argus-eyed Throkmorton, who by his paid agents could penetrate into the boudoirs of his fellow-diplomatists and read their most cherished secrets,[908] wrote to Queen Elizabeth that a gentleman had reported to him that he had seen "at the Pope's nuncio's hands a letter from the nuncio in Spain, wherein the aids were promised, and that the King of Spain had written to the French king that he would not only help him to suppress all heresy, trouble, and rebellion in France, but also join him to cause all such others as will not submit to the See Apostolic to come to order." In fact, Throkmorton was enabled to say just how many men were to come from Flanders, and how many from Spain, and how many were to enter by way of Narbonne, and how many by way of Navarre. Quick work was to be made of schism, heresy, and rebellion in France. "This done, and the parties for religion clean overthrown," added the amba.s.sador, "these princes have already accorded to convert their power towards England and Geneva, which they take to be the occasioners and causers of all their troubles."[909]

[Sidenote: Navarre's irresolution embarra.s.ses Montbrun.]

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

Finding it impossible, however, to collect the whole force to carry out his original design, Maligny retired under cover of the night, and was so fortunate as to suffer little loss.[911]

[Sidenote: The _people_ not discouraged.]

[Sidenote: "The fashion of Geneva."]

[Sidenote: Books from Geneva destroyed.]

Maligny's failure disconcerted Montbrun and Mouvans, with whom he had intended to co-operate, but had little effect in repressing the courage of the Huguenot _people_. Of this the royal despatches are the best evidence. Francis wrote to Marshal de Termes that since the a.s.sembly of Fontainebleau there had been public and armed gatherings _in an infinite number of places_, where previously there had been only secret meetings.

In Perigord, Agenois, and Limousin, _an infinite number_ of scandalous acts were daily committed by the seditious, who in most places _lived after the fashion of Geneva_. Such _canaille_ must be "wiped out."[912]

A month later those pestilent "books from Geneva" turn up again. Count de Villars, acting for Constable Montmorency in his province of Languedoc, had burned two mule-loads of very handsomely bound volumes, much to the regret of many of the Catholic troopers, who grudged the devouring flames a sacrifice worth more than a thousand crowns.[913] But he quickly followed up the chronicle of this valiant action with a complaint of his impotence to reduce the sectaries to submission. The Huguenots of Nismes had taken courage, and guarded their gates. So, or even worse, was it of Montpellier[914] and Pezenas. Other cities were about to follow their example.

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: Elections for the States General.]

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 pet.i.tion 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.