The Age of the Reformation Part 14

For a time it seemed that the need of leadership was to be supplied by William Farel. His learning, his eloquence, and his zeal, together with the perfect safety of action that he found in Switzerland, were the necessary qualifications. The need for a Bible was at first met by the version of Lefevre, printed in 1532. But the Catholic spirit of this work, based on the Vulgate, was distasteful to the evangelicals.

Farel asked Olivetan, an excellent philologist, to make a new version, which was completed by February 1535. Calvin wrote the preface for it.

It was dedicated to "the poor little church of G.o.d." In doctrine it was thoroughly evangelical, replacing the old "eveques" and "pretres"

by "surveillants" and "anciens," and omitting some of the Apocrypha.

Encouraged by their own growth the Protestants became bolder in their attacks on the Catholics. The situation verged more and more towards violence; {197} neither side, not even the weaker, thought of tolerance for both. On the night of October 17-18 some placards, written by Anthony de Marcourt, were posted up in Paris, Orleans, Rouen, Tours and Blois and on the doors of the king's chamber at Amboise. They excoriated the sacrifice of the ma.s.s as a horrible and intolerable abuse invented by infernal theology and directly counter to the true Supper of our Lord. The government was alarmed and took strong steps.

Processions were inst.i.tuted to appease G.o.d for the sacrilege. Within a month two hundred persons were arrested, twenty of whom were sent to the scaffold and the rest banished after confiscation of their goods.

But the government could not afford to continue an uninterruptedly rigorous policy. The Protestants found their opportunity in the exigencies of the foreign situation. In 1535 Francis was forced by the increasing menace of the Hapsburgs to make alliance not only with the infidel but with the Schmalkaldic League. He would have had no scruples in supporting abroad the heresy he suppressed at home, but he found the German princes would accept his friendship on no terms save those of tolerance to French Protestants. Accordingly on July 16, 1535, Francis was obliged to publish an edict ordering persecution to cease and liberating those who were in prison for conscience's sake.

But the respite did not last long. New rigors were undertaken in April 1538. Marot retracted his errors, and Rabelais, while not fundamentally changing his doctrine, greatly softened, in the second edition of his _Pantagruel_, [Sidenote: 1542] the abusive ridicule he had poured on the Sorbonne. But by this time a new era was inaugurated. The deaths of Erasmus and Lefevre in 1536 gave the _coup de grace_ to the party of the Christian {198} Renaissance, and the publication of Calvin's _Inst.i.tutes_ in the same year finally gave the French Protestants a much needed leader and standard.

[1] _Harvard Theological Review_, 1919, p. 209. Margaret had died several years before, but Rabelais was called her poet because he had claimed her protection and to her wrote a poem in 1545. _Oeuvres de Rabelais_, ed. A. Lefranc, 1912, i, pp. xxiii, cx.x.xix. _Cf_. also Calvin's letter to the Queen of Navarre, April 28, 1545. _Opera_, xii, pp. 65 f.

SECTION 2. THE CALVINIST PARTY. 1536-1559

[Sidenote: Truce of Nice, 1538]

The truce of Nice providing for a cessation of hostilities between France and the Hapsburgs for ten years, was greeted with much joy in France. Bonfires celebrated it in Paris, and in every way the people made known their longing for peace. Little the king cared for the wishes of his loyal subjects when his own dignity, real or imagined, was at stake. The war with Charles, that cursed Europe like an intermittent fever, broke out again in 1542. Again France was the aggressor and again she was worsted. The emperor invaded Champagne in person, arriving, in 1544, at a point within fifty miles of Paris. As there was no army able to oppose him it looked as if he would march as a conqueror to the capital of his enemy. But he sacrificed the advantage he had over France to a desire far nearer his heart, that of crushing his rebellious Protestant subjects. Already planning war with the League of Schmalkalden he wished only to secure his own safety from attack by his great rival. [Sidenote: Treaty of Crepy, 1544] The treaty made at Crepy was moderate in its terms and left things largely as they were.

[Sidenote: Henry II, 1547-59]

On March 31, 1547, Francis I died and was succeeded by his son, Henry II, a man of large, strong frame, pa.s.sionately fond of all forms of exercise, especially of hunting and jousting. He had neither his father's versatility nor his fickleness nor his artistic interests.

His policy was influenced by the aim of reversing his father's wishes and of disgracing his father's favorites.

[Sidenote: 1533]

While his elder brother was still alive, Henry had married Catharine de' Medici, a daughter of Lorenzo {199} II de' Medici of Florence. The girl of fourteen in a foreign country was uncomfortable, especially as it was felt, after her husband became Dauphin, that her rank was not equal to his. The failure to have any children during the first ten years of marriage made her position not only unpleasant but precarious, but the birth of her first son made her una.s.sailable. In rapid succession she bore ten children, seven of whom survived childhood.

Though she had little influence on affairs of state during her husband's reign, she acquired self-confidence and at last began to talk and act as queen.

[Sidenote: Diana of Poitiers]

At the age of seventeen Henry fell in love with a woman of thirty-six, Diana de Poitiers, to whom his devotion never wavered until his death, when she was sixty. Notwithstanding her absolute ascendancy over her lover she meddled little with affairs of state.

[Sidenote: Admiral Coligny, 1519-72]

The direction of French policy at this time fell largely into the hands of two powerful families. The first was that of Coligny. Of three brothers the ablest was Gaspard, Admiral of France, a firm friend of Henry's as well as a statesman and warrior. Still more powerful was the family of Guise, the children of Claude, Duke of Guise, who died in 1527. [Sidenote: Francis of Guise] The eldest son, Francis, Duke of Guise, was a great soldier. His brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, won a high place in the councils of state, and his sister Mary, by her marriage with James V of Scotland, brought added prestige to the family. The great power wielded by this house owed much to the position of their estates, part of which were fiefs of the French king and part subject to the Empire. As suited their convenience they could act either as Frenchmen or as foreign n.o.bles.

[Sidenote: Expansion]

Under Henry France enjoyed a period of expansion such as she had not had for many years. The {200} perpetual failures of Francis were at last turned into substantial successes. This was due in large part to the civil war in Germany and to the weakness of England's rulers, Edward VI and Mary. It was due in part to the irrepressible energy of the French bourgeois and gentlemen, in part to the genius of Francis of Guise. The co-operation of France and Turkey, rather an ident.i.ty of interests than a formal alliance, a policy equally blamed by contemporaries and praised by historians, continued. But the successes achieved were due most of all to the definite abandonment of the hope of Italian conquests and to the turning of French arms to regions more suitable for incorporation under her government.

War having been declared on Charles, the French seized the Three Bishoprics, at that time imperial fiefs, Metz, Verdun, and Toul. A large German army under Alva besieged Metz, but failed to overcome the brilliant defence of Francis of Guise. Worn by the attrition of repulsed a.s.saults and of disease the imperial army melted away. When the siege was finally raised Guise distinguished himself as much by the humanity with which he cared for wounded and sick enemies as he had by his military prowess.

Six years later Guise added fresh laurels to his fame and new possessions to France by the conquest of Calais and Guines, the last English possessions in French territory. The loss of Calais, which had been held by England since the Hundred Years War, was an especially bitter blow to the islanders. These victories were partly counterbalanced by the defeats of French armies at St. Quentin on the Somme [Sidenote: 1557] and by Egmont at Gravelines. [Sidenote: 1558]

When peace was signed at Cateau-Cambresis, [Sidenote: Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, 1559] France renounced all her conquests in the south, but kept the Three Bishoprics and Calais, all of which became her permanent possessions.

[Sidenote: Calvinism]

{201} While France was thus expanding her borders, the internal revolution matured rapidly. The last years of Francis and the reign of Henry II saw a prodigious growth of Protestantism. What had begun as a sect now became, by an evolution similar to that experienced in Germany, a powerful political party. It is the general fate of new causes to meet at first with opposition due to habit and the instinctive reaction of almost all minds against "the pain of a new idea." But if the cause is one suited to the spirit and needs of the age, it gains more and more supporters, slowly if left to itself, rapidly if given good organization and adequate means of presenting its claims. The thorough canva.s.sing of an idea is absolutely essential to win it a following. Now, prior to 1536, the Protestants had got a considerable amount of publicity as well through their own writings as through the attacks of their enemies. But not until Calvin settled at Geneva and began to write extensively in French, was the cause presented in a form capable of appealing to the average Frenchman.

Calvin gave not only the best apology for his cause, but also furnished it with a definite organization, and a coherent program. He supplied the dogma, the liturgy, and the moral ideas of the new religion, and he also created ecclesiastical, political, and social inst.i.tutions in harmony with it. A born leader, he followed up his work with personal appeals. His vast correspondence with French Protestants shows not only much zeal but infinite pains and considerable tact in driving home the lessons of his printed treatises.

Though the appeal of Calvin's dogmatic system was greater to an age interested in such things and trained to regard them as highly important, than we are likely to suppose at present, this was not Calvinism's only or even its main attraction to intelligent people.

Like {202} every new and genuine reform Calvinism had the advantage of arousing the enthusiasm of a small but active band of liberals. The religious zeal as well as the moral earnestness of the age was naturally drawn to the Protestant side. As the sect was persecuted, no one joined it save from conscientious motives. Against the laziness or the corruption of the prelates, too proud or too indifferent to give a reason for their faith, the innovators opposed a tireless energy in season and out of season; against the scandals of the court and the immorality of the clergy they raised the banner of a new and stern morality; to the fires of martyrdom they replied with the fires of burning faith.

The missionaries of the Calvinists were very largely drawn from converted members of the clergy, both secular and regular, and from those who had made a profession of teaching. For the purposes of propaganda these were precisely the cla.s.ses most fitted by training and habit to arouse and instruct the people. Tracts were multiplied, and they enjoyed, notwithstanding the censures of the Sorbonne, a brisk circulation. The theater was also made a means of propaganda, and an effective one.

Picardy continued to be the stronghold of the Protestants throughout this period, though they were also strong at Meaux and throughout the north-east, at Orleans, in Normandy, and in Dauphine. Great progress was also made in the south, which later became the most Protestant of all the sections of France.

[Sidenote: Catholic measures]

Catholics continued to rely on force. There was a counter-propaganda, emanating from the University of Paris, but it was feeble. The Jesuits, in the reign of Henry II, had one college at Paris and two in Auvergne; otherwise there was hardly any intellectual effort made to overcome the reformers. Indeed, the Catholics hardly had the munitions for such a combat. {203} Apart from the great independents, holding themselves aloof from all religious controversy, the more intelligent and enterprising portion of the educated cla.s.s had gone over to the enemy.

But the government did its best to supply the want of argument by the exercise of authority. New and severe edicts against "the heresies and false doctrines of Luther and his adherents and accomplices" were issued. The Sorbonne prohibited the reading and sale of sixty-five books by name, including the works of Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Dolet, and Marot, and all translations of the Bible issued by the publishing house of Estienne.

The south of France had in earlier centuries been prolific in sects claiming a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg. Like the Bohemian Brethren they eagerly welcomed the Calvinists as allies and were rapidly enrolled in the new church. Startled by the stirring of the spirit of reform, the Parlement of Aix, acting in imitation of Simon de Monfort, [Sidenote: 1540] ordered two towns, Merindol and Cabrieres, destroyed for their heresy. The sentence was too drastic for the French government to sanction immediately; it was therefore postponed by command of the king, but it was finally executed, at least in part. [Sidenote: 1545] A ghastly ma.s.sacre took place in which eight hundred or more of the Waldenses perished. A cry of horror was raised in Germany, in Switzerland, and even in France, from which the king himself recoiled in terror.

Only a few days after his accession Henry issued an edict against blasphemy, and this was followed by a number of laws against heresy. A new court of justice was created to deal with heretics. [Sidenote: October 8, 1547] From its habit of sending its victims to the stake it soon became known as the Chambre Ardente. Its powers were so extensive that the clergy protested against them as {204} infringements of their rights. In its first two years it p.r.o.nounced five hundred sentences,--and what sentences! Even in that cruel age its punishments were frightful. Burning alive was the commonest. If the heretic recanted on the scaffold he was strangled before the fire was lit; if he refused to recant his tongue was cut out. [Sidenote: June, 1551]

Those who were merely suspected were cast into dungeons from which many never came out alive. Torture was habitually used to extract confession. For those who recanted before sentence milder, but still severe, punishments were meted out: imprisonment and various sorts of penance. By the edict of Chateaubriand a code of forty-six articles against heresy was drawn up, and the magistrate empowered to put suspected persons under surveillance.

In the face of this fiery persecution the conduct of the Calvinists was wonderfully fine. They showed great adroitness in evading the law by all means save recantation and great astuteness in using what poor legal means of defence were at their disposal. On the other hand they suffered punishment with splendid constancy and courage, very few failing in the hour of trial, and most meeting death in a state of exaltation. Large numbers found refuge in other lands. During the reign of Henry II fourteen hundred fled to Geneva, not to mention the many who settled in the Netherlands, England, and Germany.

[Sidenote: Protestant growth]

Far from lying pa.s.sive, the Calvinists took the offensive not only by writing and preaching but by attacking the images of the saints. Many of these were broken or defaced. One student in the university of Paris smashed the images of the Virgin and St. Sebastian and a stained gla.s.s window representing the crucifixion, and posted up placards attacking the cult of the saints. For this he was pilloried three times and then shut into a small hole walled in on all sides {205} save for an aperture through which food was pa.s.sed him until he died.

Undaunted by persecution the innovators continued to grow mightily in numbers and strength. The church at Paris, though necessarily meeting in secret, was well organized. The people of the city a.s.sembled together in several conventicles in private houses. By 1559 there were forty fully organized churches (_eglises dressees_) throughout France, and no less than 2150 conventicles or mission churches (_eglises plantees_). Estimates of numbers are precarious, but good reason has been advanced to show that early in the reign of Henry the Protestants amounted to one-sixth of the population. Like all enthusiastic minorities they wielded a power out of proportion to their numbers.

Increasing continually, as they did, it is probable, but for the hostility of the government, they would have been a match for the Catholics. At any rate they were eager to try their strength. A new and important fact was that they no longer consisted entirely of the middle cla.s.ses. High officers of government and great n.o.bles began to join their ranks. In 1546 the Bishop of Nimes protected them openly, being himself suspected, probably with justice, of Calvinism. In 1548 a lieutenant-general was among those prosecuted for heresy. Anthony of Bourbon, a descendant of Louis IX, a son of the famous Charles, Constable of France, and husband of Joan d 'Albret, queen of Navarre, who was a daughter of Margaret d'Angouleme, became a Protestant.

[Sidenote: 1555] About the same time the great Admiral Coligny was converted, though it was some years before he openly professed his faith. His brother, d'Andelot, also adhered to the Calvinists but was later persuaded by the king and by his wife to go back to the Catholic fold.

So strong had the Protestants become that the {206} French government was compelled against its will to tolerate them in fact if not in principle, and to recognize them as a party in the state with a quasi-const.i.tutional position. The synod held at Paris in May, 1559, was evidence that the first stage in the evolution of French Protestantism was complete. This a.s.sembly drew up a creed called the _Confessio Gallicana_, setting forth in forty articles the purest doctrine of Geneva. Besides affirming belief in the common articles of Christianity, this confession a.s.serted the dogmas of predestination, justification by faith only, and the distinctive Calvinistic doctrine of the eucharist. The worship of saints was condemned and the necessity of a church defined. For this church an organization and discipline modelled on that of Geneva was provided. The country was divided into districts, the churches within which were to send to a central consistory representatives both clerical and lay, the latter to be at least equal in number to the former. Over the church of the whole nation there was to be a national synod or "Colloque" to which each consistory was to send one clergyman and one or two lay elders.

Alarmed by the growth of the Protestants, Henry II was just preparing, after the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, to grapple with them more earnestly than ever, when he died of a wound accidentally received in a tournament. [Sidenote: July 10, 1559] His death, hailed by Calvin as a merciful dispensation of Providence, conveniently marks the ending of one epoch and the beginning of another. For the previous forty years France had been absorbed in the struggle with the vast empire of the Hapsburgs. For the next forty years she was completely occupied with the wars of religion. Externally, she played a weak role because of civil strife and of a contemptible government. Indeed, all her interests, both foreign and domestic, were from this {207} time forgotten in the intensity of the pa.s.sions aroused by fanaticism. The date of Henry's demise also marks a change in the evolution of the French government. Hitherto, for some centuries, the trend had been away from feudalism to absolute monarchy. The ideal, "une foi, une loi, un roi" had been nearly attained. But this was now checked in two ways. The great n.o.bles found in Calvinism an opportunity to a.s.sert their privileges against the king. The middle cla.s.ses in the cities, especially in those regions where sectionalism was still strong, found the same opportunity but turned it to the advantage of republicanism.

A fierce spirit of resistance not only to the prelates but to the monarch, was born. There was even a considerable amount of democratic sentiment. The poor clergy, who had become converted to Calvinism, were especially free in denouncing the inequalities of the old regime which made of the higher clergy great lords and left the humbler ministers to starve. The fact is that the message of Calvinism was essentially democratic in that the excellence of all Christians and their perfect equality before G.o.d was preached. [Sidenote: Equality preached] Interest in religion and the ability to discuss it was not confined to a privileged hierarchy, but was shared by the humblest. In a ribald play written in 1564 it is said:[1]

If faut que Jeanne [a servant] entre les pots Parle de reformation; La nouvelle religion A tant fait que les chambrieres, Les serviteurs et les tripieres En disputent publiquement.

But while the gay courtier and worldling sneered at the religion of market women and scullerymaids, he had little cause to scoff when he met the Protestants {208} in debate at the town hall of his city, or on the field of battle.

Finally, the year 1559 very well marks a stage in the development of French Protestantism. Until about 1536 it had been a mere unorganized opinion, rather a philosophy than a coherent body. From the date of the publication of the _Inst.i.tutes_ to that of the Synod of 1559 the new church had become organized, self-conscious, and definitely political in aims. But after 1559 it became more than a party; it became an _imperium in imperio_. There was no longer one government and one allegiance in France but two, and the two were at war.

[Sidenote: The Huguenots]

It was just at this time that the name of Huguenot applied to the Protestants, hitherto called "Lutherans," "heretics of Meaux" and, more rarely, "Calvinists." The origin of the word, first used at Tours in 1560, is uncertain. It may possibly come from "le roi Huguet" or "Hugon," a night spectre; the allusion then would be to the ghostly manner in which the heretics crept by night to their conventicles.

Huguenot is also found as a family name at Belfort as early as 1425.

It may possibly come from the term "Hausgenossen" as used in Alsace of those metal-workers who were not taken into the gild but worked at home, hence a name of contempt like the modern "scab." It may also come from the name of the Swiss Confederation, "Eidgenossen," and perhaps this derivation is the most likely, though it cannot be considered beyond doubt. Whatever the origin of the name the picture of the Huguenot is familiar to us. Of all the fine types of French manhood, that of the Huguenot is one of the finest. Gallic gaiety is tempered with earnestness; intrepidity is strengthened with a new moral fibre like that of steel. Except in the case of a few great lords, who joined the party without serious conviction, the high standard of the Huguenot morals was recognized even by their enemies. In an age of profligacy the "men of the religion," as they called themselves, walked the paths of rect.i.tude and sobriety.