Note 1060 — Chapter XI

Projects somewhat similar had been made, early in the year, in some of the provincial estates. In those of Languedoc, held at Montpellier in March, 1561, Terlon, a "capitoul" of Toulouse, speaking for the "tiers état," advocated the sale of all the secular possessions of the clergy, reserving only a residence for the incumbent, and assigning him a pension equal to his present income, to be paid by the cities of the kingdom. Chabot, a lawyer of Nismes, went further, and, when the clamor of the people had secured the hearing at first denied him, did not hesitate to say that the burdens of the province should be placed upon the shoulders of the priests and monks—whom he stigmatized as ignorant and corrupt—because of the evils they had inflicted upon the people. He even wanted a petition to this effect, signed by thirty syndicates favorable to the reformed religion, to be inserted in the cahier of Languedoc. Mémoires d'Achille Gamon—advocate and consul of Annonay—apud Collection de Mémoires, Michaud et Poujoulat, 611. Some such wholesale confiscation seems even to have entered into the plans of the cabinet. In May, 1561, royal letters were sent to the Bishop of Paris, to the provost, and indeed, throughout France, demanding a return of the true value of all episcopal and other revenues (Mémoires de Condé, i. 27). The object was plain enough. The clergy remonstrated energetically, as may be imagined (Ib., i. 29-39). The Paris clergy had especial recourse to the Cardinal of Lorraine, in a letter of June 3d. Honest Abbé Bruslart, touched to the quick by the suggestion, notes in his quaint journal: "Voilà les incommoditez de la nouvelle religion," etc. (Ib., i. 28).