Volume 1 / Book 1 — CHAPTER VIII.

HENRY THE SECOND, AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCHES.

Death of Francis I.

Impartial estimates of his character.

On the thirty-first of March, 1547, Francis the First died, leaving the throne to his only surviving son. With whatever assiduity the poets and scholars of whom the late king had been a munificent patron, and the courtiers who had basked in the sunshine of his favor, might apply themselves to the celebration of his resplendent merits, posterity, less blind to his faults, has declined to confirm the title of "great" affixed to his name by contemporaries. The candid historian, undazzled by the glitter of his chivalric enterprises, may condemn the animus, but can scarcely deny the substantial truth of the bitter reproaches in which the Emperor Charles the Fifth indulged, respecting the uniform faithlessness of his ancient rival.[516] Much less can he pardon the cruel persecution which Francis allowed to be exercised against an unoffending part of his subjects, less from zeal for the tenets of the church whose cause he espoused than from a selfish fear lest his prerogative might be impaired.

His three sons.

Henry, Duke of Orleans.

Character of the new king.

Of the three sons of Francis, the dauphin and his youngest brother, the Duke of Angoulême, had been snatched away by death during the lifetime of their father.[517] The Duke of Orleans, who now ascended the throne as Henry the Second, was not a favorite son.[518] More than once he had incurred his father's grave displeasure by insubordination. A mad frolic, in which the young prince undertook in sport to distribute the high offices of state, as if his father were already dead, and disclosed his intention to recall to power the monarch's disgraced courtiers, occasioned a serious breach. More important consequences might have flowed from the unfortunate incident, had not the youth and the giddy companions of his revel sought safety in temporary exile from court.[519] From his father Henry inherited great bodily vigor, and remarkable skill in all games of strength and agility. His frame, naturally well proportioned, was finely developed by exercise.[520] He was accounted the fleetest runner, and the most graceful rider in France. He rarely suffered a day to pass without playing ball, not unfrequently after having hunted down a stag or two. In the more dangerous pastimes of mock combat and jousting he delighted to engage, to the no small alarm of all spectators.[521] Unfortunately, however, the intellectual and moral development of the young prince had by no means kept pace with the growth of his physical powers. The sluggishness of his dull and unready comprehension had, at an earlier date, been noticed by the Venetian Marino Cavalli, while, with a courtier's flattery, he likened him to those autumnal fruits that are more tardy in ripening, but are of better quality and last longer than the fruits of summer.[522] Although he had reached the age of twenty-eight years on the very day of his accession, he was still a child in all that respected the serious concerns of life and the duties of his elevated position. Averse to that careful deliberation which the public affairs demanded, and willing to be led by those who would think for him, it immediately became evident that he was destined to be the mere image of a king, while the powers of royalty were to be enjoyed by his trusted advisers and by those who could minister to his immoderate love of pleasure. The issue abundantly proved the truth of the assertion that his reign ought rather to be called the reign of Diana of Poitiers, of Montmorency, and of the Cardinal of Lorraine; of whom the last, it was said, had the king's conscience in his sleeve, and the first his body, as by some species of sorcery.[523]

Wotton's view of the French court.

Scarcely had Francis breathed his last when shrewd observers of the current of political influence were able to make up their minds pretty fully upon the favorites that were to rule under Henry's name. "The French king, straight after his father's death," wrote Dr. Wotton, "hath revoked the Constable to the court again; who is now in as great triumph (as men say) as ever he was, if it be not more.... Of the younger sort of those that are at the court already, these seem to be the chief favorites: Andelot, younger brother to Châtillon, and his brother, the Cardinal of Châtillon; the Duke of Guise's sons, in a manner all, but especially these: Monsieur d'Aumale [Francis, later Duke of Guise], the Bishop of Rheims [Cardinal Charles of Lorraine], and the Bishop of Troyes, who, as I hear say, are all three of the council. Monsieur d'Aumale is in very great favour ... but in greatest estimation and favour of all, as it appeareth hitherto, either of them of the older sort or of the younger sort, seemeth to be the said Bishop of Rheims, who had the chief ordering of the king's house, he being Dolphin; whom I could wish to be of as good judgment in matters of religion as I take the Cardinal du Bellay to be, but I hear he is not so, but very earnest in upholding the Romish blindness.... Of the dames, Madame la Grande Senechale seemeth to be highly esteemed."[524]

To gain a clear view of the various influences—at one time neutralizing each other, and thus tending to the protection of the reformed doctrines and their professors, but much more frequently acting in concert, and tending to the suppression of those doctrines—it is necessary that we examine in some detail the position of Diana, of the Constable, and of the Guises.

Diana of Poitiers.

The king's infatuation.

Diana of Poitiers, daughter of Monsieur de St. Vallier, and widow of De Brezé, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, had in her youth been celebrated for her beauty, by which she had first captivated Francis the First, and afterward made Henry forget the claims of his Florentine bride upon his affections. But she was now a matron of forty-seven years of age, and the public wondered as they saw the undiminished devotion of the new monarch to a woman nearly a score of years older than himself. It is true that the courtier's pen of Brantôme ascribes to her all the freshness of youth even at the close of the reign of Henry the Second. His eulogium, however, is scarcely more worthy of credit than Homer's praise of the undiminished personal beauty of Helen, when, twenty years subsequently to the departure of the expedition to Troy, the Ithacan prince found her reigning again at Sparta. But of the influence which Diana possessed over Henry there could be no doubt. By the vulgar it was attributed to the use of charms and love-potions. The infatuation of the monarch knew no bounds. He loaded her with gifts; he entrusted her with the crown jewels;[525] he conferred upon her the dignity of a duchess of Valentinois. In her apartments he spent hours daily, in company with his most intimate courtiers. Through love for her he adopted her favorite colors, and took for his device the crescent, with the words, "Totum donec compleat orbem." The public edifices of his time, it is said, still bear testimony to this dishonorable attachment, in the initials or emblems of Henry and Diana sculptured together upon their façades; and the Venetian Soranzo, at a later period in Henry's reign, magnifying her influence upon every department of the administration, affirms, in particular, that the dispensation of ecclesiastical offices was in her hands.[526] It is not surprising that, being of an avaricious character, she soon accumulated great wealth.

Constable Anne de Montmorency.

His cruelty.

Anne de Montmorency, one of the four marshals of France, grand-master of the palace, and constable, was among the most notable personages of the sixteenth century. Sprung from a family claiming descent from the first Frank that followed the example of Clovis in renouncing paganism, and bearing on its escutcheon the motto, "God defend the first Christian," he likewise arrogated the foremost rank in the nobility as the first baron of the kingdom. From his youth he was accustomed to association with royalty. Margaret of Navarre was his early friend, and at a later period had occasion to complain of his ingratitude. He was at this time fifty-five years of age, severe, stern, fond of arms, complaisant to royalty, but harsh and overbearing in his relations with inferiors. Of his personal valor there can be no doubt, and he was generally regarded as the ablest general in France—an opinion, it is true, which his subsequent ill-success contributed much to shake.[527] But his martial glory was dimmed by his well-known avarice, his ignorance,[528] and a cruelty that often approached ferocity. Of this last trait a signal instance was afforded when Montmorency was sent, in the year after Henry's accession, to suppress a formidable revolt which had broken out in Guyenne, in consequence of a considerable increase of the already burdensome impost upon salt. He haughtily refused to accept the keys of the city of Bordeaux tendered to him by the citizens on his approach. His artillery, he said, would serve him as well in gaining admission. The severity of the retribution meted out under his superintendence to those who had ventured to resist the royal authority was unparalleled in French history.[529] If the constable's ferocity did not diminish with age, it acquired a tinge of the ludicrous from his growing superstition. Never would he omit his devotions at the appointed hour, whether at home or in the field—"so conscientious was he." But he would interrupt the recital of his pater-nosters with such orders as the emergency might demand, or his inclination prompt: "Seize such a man! Hang that one to a tree! Run that fellow through at once with your pikes, or shoot him down before my eyes! Cut the knaves to pieces that have undertaken to hold that belfry against the king! Burn that village! Fire everything to the distance of a quarter of a league!" So terrible a reputation did his devotions consequently acquire, that it was a current saying: "Beware of the constable's pater-nosters!"[530]

His unpopularity.

In fact, Anne de Montmorency was ill-fitted to win popularity. A despatch of Sir John Mason, three years later, gives a glimpse of his relations with his fellow-courtiers. "There is a little square," he writes, "between the Duchess of Valentinois, who ruleth the roast, and the constable. A great many of the court wisheth the increase thereof. He is very ill-beloved, for that he is a hinderer of all men saving his own kinsfolks, whom he doth so advance as no man may have anything by his will but they, and for that also he feedeth every man with fair words, and performeth nothing."[531]

Recalled from disgrace by Henry II.

For six years before the death of Francis the First the constable had been living in retirement upon his estates. The occasion of his banishment from court is stated, by one who enjoyed the best opportunities for learning the truth, to have been the advice which he had given the monarch to permit the Emperor Charles the Fifth to pass through his dominions when going to Netherlands to suppress the revolt of the burghers of Ghent.[532] Francis, indeed, is said on his deathbed to have warned his son against the dangers with which the ambition of the constable and of the family of Guise threatened his kingdom. But, as we have seen, Henry had no sooner received tidings of his father's death, than he at once summoned Montmorency to court, and resigned to him undisputed control of the affairs of state. The Venetian Dandolo, sent to congratulate the monarch upon his advent to the throne, felicitated the favorite on his merited resumption of his former rank and the honor of the "universal charge" which he held.[533] He was now all-powerful. The Duchess d'Étampes, mistress of the late king, to whose influence his disgrace was in part owing, for this and other offences was exiled from court and sent to the castle of her husband.[534] Admiral Annebaut and the Cardinal of Tournon were removed from the head of the administration. The former, of whose sterling worth Francis entertained so high an appreciation that he had bequeathed to him the sum of 100,000 livres, was compelled to resign his place as Marshal of France in favor of a new favorite—Jacques d'Albon de St. André, of whom more particular mention must be made presently.[535]

The family of Guise.

Duke Claude.

The first Cardinal of Lorraine.

Francis is reported to have included the family of Guise with Constable Montmorency in the warning addressed to his son, and the story, received by the people as an undoubted truth, circulated in a poetical form for many years.[536] The Guises were of foreign extraction, and had but recently become residents of France. Claude, the fifth son of the Duke of Lorraine, at that time an independent state, came to the French court, in the early part of the sixteenth century, in quest of opportunities to advance his fortunes greater than were open to a younger member of the reigning family in his father's contracted dominions. Partly through the influence of Montmorency, partly in consequence of his marriage with Antoinette of Bourbon, a princess of royal blood, in some degree also by his own abilities, the young foreigner was rapidly advanced, from the comparatively insignificant position at first assigned him, to more important trusts. At length he became royal lieutenant of the provinces of Champagne and Burgundy, and his small domain of Guise was erected into a duchy.[537] His younger brother John, who had entered the church as offering the most promising road to the attainment of his ambitious designs, had also come westward; and, proving to be a jovial companion whose presence imposed no restraint upon the license of a profligate court, he fared even better in securing ecclesiastical preferment than his brother in obtaining secular advantages.[538] In his favor Francis made use, in a manner lavish beyond precedent, of the right of nomination to benefices secured to the crown by the concordat. Even an age well accustomed to the abuse of the plurality of offices was amazed to see John of Lorraine at one and the same time Archbishop of Lyons, Rheims, and Narbonne, Bishop of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Therouenne, Luçon, Alby, and Valence, and Abbot of Gorze, Fécamp, Clugny, and Marmoutier.[539] To gratify the French monarch, Pope Leo the Tenth added to the dignity of the young ecclesiastic, by conferring upon him the Cardinal's hat a year or two before he had attained his majority.[540] Shrewd and plausible, the Cardinal of Lorraine, as he was henceforth called, contributed not a little to his brother's rapid advancement; and, as it was well understood that the rich benefices he held and the accumulation of his wealth would go, at his death, to enrich his nephews, he was treated with great deference by all the members of his brother's family.

Marriage of James V. of Scotland to Mary of Lorraine.

An important era in the history of the Guises is marked by the marriage effected, in 1538, between James the Fifth of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine, the eldest daughter of Claude. This royal alliance secured for the Guises a predominant influence in North British affairs after the death of James. It brought them into close connection with the crown of France, when Mary, Queen of Scots, the fruit of this union, was affianced to the son of Henry the Second, the dauphin, afterward Francis the Second. It encouraged the adherents of this house to attribute to it an almost regal dignity, and to intimate more and more plainly its claim upon the throne of France, as descended through the Dukes of Lorraine from Charlemagne—a title superior to that of the Valois, who could trace their origin to no higher source than the usurper Hugh Capet.

The duke's sons.

Francis of Guise.

Charles, Cardinal of Guise, and afterward of Lorraine.

But the second generation of the Guises was destined to exert, during the reign of Henry the Second, an influence more controlling than the brothers Claude and John had exerted during his father's reign. The six sons of Claude—all displaying the grasping disposition of the house from which they sprang, all aiming at the acquisition of position and wealth, each of them insatiable, yet never exhibiting a rivalry that might prove detrimental to their common expectations—throw into obscurity the surprising success of their father and uncle, by their own marvellous prosperity. Scarcely had a third part of Henry's reign gone by, before foreign ambassadors wrote home glowing accounts of the influence of the younger favorites. "The credit of the house of Guise in this court," said one, "passeth all others. For albeit the constable hath the outward administration of all things, being for that service such a man as hard it were to find the like, yet have they so much credit as he with whom he is constrained to sail, and many times to take that course that he liketh never a whit."[541] Francis, the eldest son, known until his father's death as the Count of Aumale, and afterward succeeding him as Duke of Guise, entered the inviting profession of arms. The second son, Charles, chose the life of an ecclesiastic, and soon assumed with respect to his brothers a commanding position similar to that which John had occupied. At an early age he had been elevated to the Archbishopric of Rheims, voluntarily ceded to him by his uncle. Henry, soon after his accession, obtained from the pontiff a place in the consistory for the young ecclesiastic, who then became known as the Cardinal of Guise, and, after his uncle's death, in 1550, as Cardinal of Lorraine. The four younger brothers respectively figured in subsequent years as the Duke of Aumale, the Cardinal of Guise, the Marquis of Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior of France.[542]

Character of Francis.

Francis of Guise, although but twenty-eight years of age, was already regarded as a brilliant general and an accomplished courtier. Vain and ostentatious, yet possessed of more real military ability than his unfortunate Italian campaign of 1556 would seem to indicate, he won laurels at Metz, at Calais, and at Thionville.[543] Outside of the pursuits of war he was grossly ignorant, and in all civil and religious matters he allowed himself to be governed by the advice of his brother Charles. Even the Protestants, whom he so deeply injured, would for the most part have acquiesced in the opinion of the cabinet minister, De l'Aubespine, that the Duke of Guise was a captain capable of rendering good service to his native land, had he not been hindered and infected by his brother's ambition. It is the same trustworthy authority who states that the duke was more than once induced to exclaim of his brother Charles: "That man in the end will ruin us."[544]

Various estimates of the second Cardinal of Lorraine.

The portraits of men who, for weal or woe, have exercised a powerful influence upon their times, are frequently painted so differently by their advocates and by their opponents, that for him who would obtain an impartial view of their merits or defects it will prove a difficult task to discover any means of removing the discrepancies in the representations and attaining the truth. Fortunate must he esteem himself if he chance to find some contemporary, less directly interested in the events and persons described, to furnish him with the results of unbiassed observation. In the conflict of the Protestant and Roman Catholic writers of France respecting Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, the "relations" of the Venetian ambassadors, devoted adherents of the Holy See, made to the doge and senate of their native state, and given under the seal of secrecy, must be esteemed a rich historical legacy. The cardinal's intellect, these envoys tell us, was wonderfully acute. He understood the point at which those who conversed with him were aiming when they had scarcely opened their mouth. His memory was more than usually retentive. He was well educated, and learned not only in Greek, Latin, and Italian, but in the sciences, and especially in theology. He had a rare gift of talking. In the fulfilment of his promises he was less famous. According to one ambassador, he had the reputation of rarely speaking the truth. Another styles him little truthful, and of a deceitful and avaricious disposition.[545] Both agree in representing him as covetous "beyond the avarice natural to the French, even employing dishonorable means to increase his wealth."[546] Both unite in extolling his administrative abilities. In observance of the precepts of the church he was exemplary. Yearly did he retire from court to spend the season of Lent on some one of his numerous possessions. In life, "so far as the outside is concerned," he observed the decorum appropriate to his rank, thus presenting a striking contrast to the other cardinals and prelates of the kingdom, who were "of a most licentious character." But he was vindictive, slow in rewarding services, and so violent that it was probable that no other event was so much desired in France as his death.[547] The scandalous stories related by Brantôme, which have generally been understood to apply to Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, really refer, as Ranke has observed,[548] to his uncle, the Cardinal John; but the abbé, who was certainly not unfriendly to the Guises, mingles praise and censure as equal ingredients in sketching the character of the former. If he was "very religious," after Brantôme's idea of religion, he was also esteemed a "great hypocrite," with whom religion served as a stepping-stone to greatness. If he was a "holy" man, he was "not too conscientious." If gracious and affable at times, it was only when something had gone wrong with him; for in prosperity no one was more overbearing.[549]

Such, according to writers of his own religion, was the churchman of whom, with Diana of Poitiers, the cabinet minister who knew both well wrote: "It were to be desired that this woman and the cardinal had never been born; for they two alone have been the spark that kindled our misfortunes."[550] Pasquin well reflected the sentiments of the people when he altered the motto that accompanied the device of the cardinal—an ivy-clad pyramid—from "Te stante, virebo" to "Te virente, peribo."[551]

Rapacity of the new favorites.

Marshal Saint-André.

Servility toward Diana of Poitiers.

With a weak-minded prince, averse to anything except the gratification of his passions, and under the influence of such counsellors, France became almost of necessity a scene of rapacity beyond all precedent. The princes of the blood continued in their exclusion from official positions. Each of the new favorites was not only eager to obtain wealth for himself, but had a number of relations for whom provision must also be made. To the more prominent courtiers above enumerated was added Jacques d'Albon de Saint-André, son of Henry's tutor, who, from accidental intimacy with the king in childhood, was led to aspire to high dignities in the state, and was not long in obtaining a marshal's baton.[552] Herself securing not only the rank of Duchess of Valentinois, with the authority of a queen,[553] but the enormous revenues derived from the customary confirmation of offices at the beginning of a new reign, Diana permitted the constable, the Guises, and Saint-André to partake to a less degree in the spoils of the kingdom. A contemporary writer likens the brood of courtiers she gathered about her to swallows in pursuit of flies on a summer's evening. Nothing escaped them—rank, dignity, bishopric, abbey, office, or other dainty morsel—all alike were eagerly devoured. Spies and salaried agents were posted in all parts of the kingdom to convey the earliest intelligence of the death of those who possessed any valuable benefices. Physicians in their employ at Paris sent in frequent bulletins of the health of sick men who enjoyed offices in church or state; nor were instances wanting in which, for the present of a thousand crowns, they were said to have hastened a wealthy patient's death. Even the king was unable to give as he wished, and sought to escape the importunity of his favorites by falsely assuring them that he had already made promises to others. Thus only could they be kept at bay.[554] The Guises and Montmorency, to render their power more secure, courted the favor of the king's mistress. The Cardinal of Lorraine, in particular, distinguished himself by the servility which he displayed. For two years he put himself to infinite trouble to be at the table of Diana.[555] After her elevation to the peerage, he addressed to her a letter, still extant, in which he assured her that henceforth his interest and hers were inseparable.[556] To give yet greater firmness to the bond uniting them, the Guises brought about a marriage between their third brother, the Duke of Aumale, and one of the daughters of the Duchess of Valentinois; while the Constable of Montmorency, at a later time, undertook to gain a similar advantage for his own family by causing his son to wed Diana, a natural daughter of the king.

Persecution to atone for moral blemishes.

It may at first sight appear somewhat incongruous that a king and court thus given up, the former to flagrant immorality, the latter to the unbridled pursuit of riches and honors, should early have exhibited a disposition to carry forward in an aggravated form the system of persecution initiated in the previous reign. The secret of the apparent inconsistency may be found in the fact that the courtiers were not slow in perceiving, on the one hand, the almost incalculable gains which the confiscation of the goods of condemned heretics might be made to yield, and, on the other, the facility with which a monarch of a disposition naturally gentle and humane[557] could be persuaded to countenance the most barbarous cruelties, as the supposed means of atoning for the dissoluteness of his own life. The observance of the strict precepts of the moral law, they argued, was of less importance than the purity of the faith. The title of "Very Christian" had been borne by some of his predecessors whose private lives had been full of gallantries. His claim to it would be forfeited by the adoption of the stern principles of the reformers; while the Pontiff who conferred it would never venture to remove the honorable distinction, or refuse to unlock the gates of paradise to him who should prove himself an obedient son of the church and a persecutor of its enemies. To fulfil these conditions was the easier, as the persons upon whom were to be exercised the severities dictated by heaven, plotted revolutions and aspired to convert France into a republic, on the pattern of the cantons of Switzerland. Lending a willing ear to these suggestions, Henry the Second no sooner began to reign than he began to persecute.[558]

The "Chambre ardente."

Edict of Fontainebleau against books from Geneva.

Deceptive title-pages.

Toward the close of the reign of Francis, the prisons of Normandy had become so full of persons incarcerated for religion's sake, that a separate and special chamber had been instituted in the Parliament of Rouen, to give exclusive attention to the trial of such cases.[559] One of Henry's first acts was to establish a similar chamber in the Parliament of Paris.[560] Judges selected with such a commission were not likely to incline to the side of mercy; and the chamber speedily earned for itself, by the numbers of victims it sent to the flames, the significant popular name of "la Chambre ardente."[561] The rapid propagation of the reformed doctrines by the press gave occasion to the publication of a new edict. The printing of any book containing matters pertaining to the Holy Scriptures was strictly forbidden. Equally prohibited was the sale of books brought from Geneva, Germany, or other foreign parts, without the approval of the Theological Faculty of Paris. All annotated copies of the Bible must contain the name of the author, and the publisher's name and address. Persons of all ranks were warned against retaining in their possession any condemned work.[562] But these restrictions had little effect in repressing the spread of the Reformation. If a severe blow was struck at the publishing trade in France, the dissemination of books printed abroad, and, frequently, with spurious title-pages,[563] was largely increased. It now assumed, however, a more stealthy and cautious character.

Execution of Brugière.

The tailor of the Rue St. Antoine.

Blood flowed in every part of the kingdom. Not only the capital, but also the provinces furnished their constant witnesses to the truth of the "Lutheran" doctrines. The noted trial and execution of John Brugière revealed to the First President of Parliament the humiliating fact that the Reformation had gained a strong foothold in his native Auvergne.[564] At Paris, one Florence Venot was confined seven weeks in a cell upon the construction of which so much perverted ingenuity had been expended that the prisoner could neither lie down nor stand erect, and the hour of release from weary torture was waited for with ardent longing, even if it led to the stake.[565] But the death of a nameless tailor has, by the singularity of its incidents, acquired a celebrity surpassing that of any other martyrdom in the early part of this reign. In the midst of the tourneys and other festivities provided to signalize the occasion of the queen's coronation and his own solemn entry into Paris, the desire seized Henry to see with his own eyes and to interrogate one of the members of the sect to whose account such serious charges were laid. A poor tailor, arrested in his shop in the Rue St. Antoine, a few paces from the royal palace, for the crime of working on a day which the church had declared holy, was brought before him. So contemptible a dialectician could do little, it was presumed, to shake the faith of the Very Christian King. But the result disappointed the expectations of the courtiers and ecclesiastics that were present. The tailor answered with respectful boldness to the questions propounded by Châtellain, Bishop of Macon, a prelate once favorable to the Reformation. Hereupon Diana of Poitiers, an interested opponent, whose coffers were being filled with the goods of condemned heretics, undertook to silence him with the tongue of a witty woman. The tailor, who had patiently borne the ridicule and scorn with which he had hitherto been treated, turned upon the mistress of the king a look of solemn warning as he said: "Madam, let it suffice you to have infected France, without desiring to mingle your poison and filth with so holy and sacred a thing as the true religion of our Lord Jesus Christ." The courtiers were thunderstruck at the turn taken by a discussion to which they had flocked as to a scene of diversion, and the enraged king ordered the tailor's instant trial and punishment. He even desired with his own eyes to see him undergo the extreme penalty of the law. A solemn procession had been ordered to proceed from St. Paul's to Notre Dame. The prayers there offered for the destruction of heresy were followed by an "exemplary demonstration" of the king's pious disposition, in the execution of four "Lutherans" in as many different squares of the city.[566] In order the better to see the punishment inflicted upon the tailor of the Rue St. Antoine, Henry posted himself at a window that commanded the entire spectacle. But it was no coward's death that he beheld. Soon perceiving and recognizing the monarch before whom he had witnessed so good a profession, the tailor fixed his gaze upon him, nor would he avert his face, however much the king ordered that his position should be changed. Even in the midst of the flames he still continued to direct his dying glance toward the king, until the latter, abashed, was compelled to withdraw from the window. For days Henry declared that the spectre haunted his waking hours and drove sleep from his eyes at night; and he affirmed with an oath that never again would he witness so horrible a scene.[567] Happy would it have been for his memory had he adhered, in the case of Anne du Bourg, to so wise a resolution!

Other victims of intolerance.

The ashes of one martyr were scarcely cold before new fires were kindled—now before the cathedral, now before some parish church, again in the crowded market or in the distant provincial town. At one time it was a widow that welcomed the rope that bound her, as the zone given her by a heavenly bridegroom in token of her approaching nuptials. A few years later, it was a nobleman who, when in view of his rank the sentence of the judges would have spared him the indignity of the halter which was placed around the neck of his companions, begged the executioner to make no exception in his case, saying: "Deny me not the collar of so excellent an order."[568]

Severe edicts and quarrels with Rome.

Edict of Châteaubriand, June 27, 1551.

War upon the books from Geneva.

The failure, however, of these fearful exhibitions to strike terror into the minds of the persecuted, or accomplish the end for which they were undertaken, is proved by their frequent recurrence, and not less by the new series of sanguinary laws running through the reign of Henry. An edict from Paris, on the nineteenth of November, 1549, endeavored to remove all excuse for remissness on the part of the prelates, by conferring on the ecclesiastical judges the unheard-of privilege of arresting for the crime of heresy, the exclusive right of passing judgment upon simple heresy, and conjoint jurisdiction with the civil courts in cases in which public scandal, riot, or sedition might be involved.[569] Less than two years later, when Henry, uniting with Maurice of Saxony and Albert of Brandenburg, received the title of Defender of the Empire against Charles the Fifth, and was on the point of making war on Pope Julius the Third, he issued an edict forbidding his subjects, under severe penalties, from carrying gold or silver to Rome.[570] But, to convince the world of his orthodoxy, he chose the same time for the publication of a new and more truculent measure, known as the Edict of Châteaubriand (on the twenty-seventh of June, 1551), directed against the reformed.[571] This notable law reiterated the old complaint of the ill-success of previous efforts, and the statement of the impossibility of attaining the desired end save by diligent care and rigorous procedure. Its most striking peculiarity was that it committed the trial of heretics to the newly appointed "presidial" judges, whose sentence, when ten counsellors had been associated with them, was to be final.[572] Thus was it contemplated to put an end to the vexatious delays by means of which the trial of many a reputed "Lutheran" had been protracted and not a few of the hated sect had in the end escaped. But the large number of additional articles exhibit in a singular manner the extent to which the doctrines of the Reformation had spread, the means of their diffusion, and the method by which it was hoped that they might be eradicated. Prominent among the provisions appear those that relate to the products of the press. Evidently the Cardinal of Lorraine and the other advisers of the king were of the same mind with the great advocate of unlicensed printing, when he said: "Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.... I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men."[573] The edict utterly prohibited the introduction of any books from Geneva and other places notoriously rebellious to the Holy See, the retention of condemned books by booksellers, and all clandestine printing. It instituted a semi-annual visitation of every typographical establishment, a clerical examination of all packages from abroad, a special inspection thrice a year at the great fairs of Lyons, through which many suspected books found their way into the kingdom. The "porte-panier," or pedler, was forbidden to sell books at all, because many pedlers brought in books from Geneva under pretext of selling other merchandise. The bearers of letters from Geneva were to be arrested and punished. The goods and chattels of those who had fled to Geneva were to be confiscated. Informers were promised one-third of the property of the condemned. And lest the tongue should contaminate those whom the printed volume might not reach, all unlettered persons were warned not even to discuss matters of faith, the sacraments, and the polity of the church, whether at the table, in the field, or in secret conventicle.[574]

The book-pedlers of Switzerland, etc.

It is clear that the "dragon's teeth" were beginning to spring up warriors full armed; but the sowing still went on. From Geneva, from Neufchâtel, from Strasbourg, and from other points, devoted men of ardent piety, and often of no little cultivation, entered France and cautiously sold or distributed the contents of the packs they carried. Often they penetrated far into the country. To such as were detected the penalty of the law was inexorably meted out. A pedler, after every bone of his body had been dislocated in the vain attempt to compel him to betray the names of those to whom he had sold his books, was burned at Paris in the midst of the applauding shouts of a great crowd of persons, who would have torn him to pieces had they been allowed.[575] The printers of French Switzerland willingly entrusted their publications to these faithful men, not without danger of the loss of their goods; and it was almost incredible how many men offered themselves to the extreme perils which threatened them.[576] The Edict of Châteaubriand, intended to destroy the rising intellectual and moral influence of Geneva, it must be noticed, had the opposite effect; for nothing had up to this time so tended to collect the scattered Protestants of France in a city where, free from the temptation to conformity with the dominant religion, they received a training adapted to qualify them for usefulness in their native land.[577]

Marshal Vieilleville refuses to profit by confiscation.

Yet the publication of the Edict of Châteaubriand was the signal for the renewal of the severity of the persecution. Every day, says the historian De Thou, persons were burned at Paris on account of religion. Cardinal Tournon and Diana of Poitiers, he tells us, shared in the opprobrium of being the instigators of these atrocities. With the latter it was less fanaticism than a desire to augment the proceeds of the confiscation of the property of condemned heretics which she had lately secured for herself, and was employing to make up the ransom of her two sons-in-law, now prisoners of war.[578] Very few of the courtiers of Henry's court had a spark of the magnanimity that fired the breast of the Marshal de Vieilleville. The name of this nobleman had, unknown to him, been inserted in a royal patent giving to him and others, who desired to shield themselves behind his honorable name, the confiscated goods of all condemned usurers and Lutherans in Guyenne and five other provinces of Southern France. When the document was placed in his hands, and he was assured that it would yield to each of the six patentees twenty thousand crowns within four months, the marshal exclaimed: "And here we stand registered in the courts of parliament as devourers of the people!... Besides that, for twenty thousand crowns to incur individually the curses of a countless number of women and children that will die in the poor-house in consequence of the forfeiture of the lives and property of their husbands and fathers, by fair means or foul—this would be to plunge ourselves into perdition at too cheap a rate!" So saying, Vieilleville drove his dagger through his own name in the patent, and others, through shame, following his example, the document was torn to pieces.[579]

The "Five Scholars of Lausanne."

Of the considerable number of those upon whom the "very rigorous procedures" laid down by the Edict of Châteaubriand were executed in almost all parts of France, according to the historian of the reformed churches,[580] the "Five Scholars of Lausanne" deserve particular mention. Natives of different points in France, these young men, with others, had enjoyed in the distinguished school instituted in the chief city of the Pays de Vaud, under the protection of the Bernese, the instructions of Theodore Beza and other prominent reformed theologians. Their names were: Martial Alba, a native of Montauban; Pierre Écrivain, of Boulogne, in Gascony; Bernard Seguin, of La Réolle, in Bazadois; Charles Favre, of Blanzac; and Pierre Navihères, of Limoges. A short time before Easter, 1552, these young men, who had reached different stages in their course of study,[581] conceived it to be their duty to return to their native land, whence the most pressing calls for additional laborers qualified to instruct others were daily coming to Switzerland. Their plan was cordially endorsed by Beza, before whom it was first laid by one of their number who had been an inmate of his home, and then by the Church of Lausanne; for it evidenced the purity and sincerity of their zeal. Provided with cordial letters from Lausanne, as well as from Geneva, through which they passed, they started each for his native city, intending to labor first of all for the conversion of their own kindred and neighbors. But a different field, and a shorter term of service than they had anticipated, were in store for them. At Lyons, having accepted the invitation of a fellow-traveller to visit him at his country-seat, they were surprised on the first of May, 1552, by the provost and his guards, and, although they had committed no violation of the king's edicts by proclaiming the doctrines they believed, were hurried to the archiepiscopal prison, and confined in separate dungeons. From their prayers for divine assistance they were soon summoned to appear singly before the "official"—the ecclesiastical judge to whom the archbishop deputed his judicial functions.[582] The answers to the interrogatories, of which they transmitted to their friends a record, it has been truly said, put to shame the lukewarmness of our days by their courage, and amaze us by the presence of mind and the wonderful acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures they display.[583] He who will peruse them in the worm-eaten pages of the "Actiones Martyrum," in which their letters were collected by the pious zeal of a contemporary, cannot doubt the proficiency these youthful prisoners had attained, both in sacred and in human letters, at the feet of the renowned Beza. Their unanswerable defence, however, only secured their more speedy condemnation as heretics. On the thirteenth of May they were sentenced to the flames; but an appeal which they made from the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge, on the plea that it contravened the laws of France, secured delay until their case could be laid before parliament. Months elapsed. Tidings of the danger that overhung the young students of Lausanne reached Beza and Calvin, and called forth their warm sympathy.[584]

Unavailing intercessions.

The best efforts of Beza and Viret were put forth in their behalf. A long succession of attempts to secure their release on the part of the canton of Berne individually, and of the four Protestant cantons of Switzerland collectively, was the result. One letter to Henry received a highly encouraging reply. An embassy from Zurich, sent when the king's word had not been kept, was haughtily informed that Henry expected the cantons to trouble him no further with the matter, and to avoid interfering with the domestic affairs of his country, as he himself abstained from intermeddling with theirs.[585] Subsequent letters and embassies to the monarch, intercessions with Cardinal de Tournon, Archbishop of Lyons, who would appear to have given assurances which he never intended to fulfil, and all the other steps dictated by Christian affection, were similarly fruitless. In fact, nothing protracted the term of the imprisonment of the "Five Scholars" but the need in which Henry felt himself to be of retaining the alliance and support of Berne. Yet when, as a final appeal, that powerful canton begged the life of its "stipendiaries" as a "purely royal and liberal gift, which it would esteem as great and precious as if his Majesty had presented it an inestimable sum of silver or gold," other political motives prevented him from yielding to its entreaties. The fear lest his compliance might furnish the emperor and Pope, against whom he was contending, with a handle for impugning his devotion to the church, was more powerful than his desire to conciliate the Bernese. The Parliament of Paris decreed that the death of the "Five" by fire should take place on the sixteenth of May, 1553, and the king refused to interpose his pardon.[586]

Their mission to France had not, however, been in vain. It is no hyperbole of the historian of the reformed churches, when he likens their cells to five pulpits, from which the Word of God resounded through the entire city and much farther.[587] The results of their heroic fortitude, and of the wide dissemination of copies of the confession of their Christian faith, were easily traced in the conversion of many within and without the prison; while the memory of their joyful constancy on their way to the place of execution—which rather resembled a triumphal than an ignominious procession—and in the flames, was embalmed in the heart of many a spectator.[588]

Activity of the canton of Berne.

The Bernese were not discouraged by the ill-success of their intercessions. Three times in the early part of the succeeding year (1554) they begged, but with no better results, for the release of Paris Panier, a man learned in the civil law.[589] With equal earnestness they took the part of the persecuted reformers against the violence of their enemies on many successive occasions. It was all in vain. The libertine king, who saw no merit in the purity of life of the professors of the "new doctrines," and no mark of Antichrist in the profligacy of Paul the Third or of Julius the Third, but viewed with horror the permission granted by the latter to the faithful of Paris to eat eggs, butter and cheese during Lent,[590] maintained his more than papal orthodoxy, and stifled the promptings of a heart by nature not averse to pity.

Progress in Normandy.

More than three years had passed away since the publication of the Edict of Châteaubriand, but none of the fruits which its authors had predicted were visible. The number of the reformed brought to trial, and especially of those condemned to the flames, gradually diminished, whilst it was notorious that the opponents of the dominant church were rapidly multiplying. In some provinces—in Normandy, for example—their placards were mysteriously posted on the walls, and their songs deriding the Franciscan monks were sung in the dark lanes of the cities. Once they had ventured to interrupt the discourse of a preacher on the topic of purgatory, by loud expressions of dissent; but when on the next day the subject was resumed, numbers of hearers left the church with cries of "au fol, au fol," and forced those who would have arrested them in the name of the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, to seek refuge from a shower of stones in an adjoining monastery.[591]

Proposal to establish the Spanish Inquisition.

The zealous friends of the church, as well as those who were enriched by confiscations, represented to the king that this state of things arose from the fact that the higher magistrates, themselves tainted with heresy, connived at its spread, and that the "presidial" judges abstained from employing the powers conferred by the edict, through fear of compromising themselves with the sovereign courts. Nor could ecclesiastical courts accomplish much, since the secular judges, to whom an appeal was open, found means to clear the guilty. They insisted that the only remedy was the introduction of the Inquisition in the form in which it had proved so efficacious in Spain and Italy. This, it was said, could be attained by taking away the appeal that had hitherto been allowed from the decisions of the church courts, and compelling the nearest secular court to enforce their sentences. It was, furthermore, proposed to confiscate, for the king's benefit, all the property of fugitives, disregarding the claims even of those who had purchased from them without collusion.[592]

Opposition of parliament.

In secret sessions held at the house of Bertrand, keeper of the seals, at which were present several of the presidents of parliament known to be least friendly to the Reformation, the necessary legislation was matured at the instance of the Cardinal of Lorraine.[593] But, when the edicts establishing the Spanish inquisition were submitted, by order of the king, to the Parliament of Paris, it soon became evident that not even the intrigues of the presidents who were favorable to them could secure their registration. In the hope of better success, the edicts were for the time withdrawn, and submitted, a few months later, to the part of parliament that held its sessions in summer,[594] accompanied by royal letters strictly enjoining their reception (lettres de jussion). Twice the gens du roi were heard in favor of the new system, pleading its necessity, the utility of enlarging the jurisdiction of the church courts, especially in the case of apostatizing monks and fanatical preachers, and the fact that parliament itself had testified that it was not averse to an inquisition—not only by recording the edicts of St. Louis and Philip the Fair, but also by two recent registrations of the powers of the Inquisitor of the Faith, Matthieu Ory.[595] After many delays and a prolonged discussion, parliament decided by a large majority that it could not comply with the king's commands, and would indicate to his Majesty other means of eradicating heresy more consistent with the spirit of Christianity.[596]

The president, Séguier, and a counsellor (Adrien du Drac) were deputed to justify before the monarch the course taken by parliament. The royal court was at this time at Villers-Cotterets, not far from Soissons, and the commissioners were informed on their arrival that Henry, displeased and scandalized at the delays of parliament, had begun to suspect it of being badly advised respecting religion and the obedience due to the church. He had said "that, if twelve judges were necessary to try Lutherans, they could not be found among the members of that body." The deputies were warned that they must expect to hear harsh words from the king's lips. Admitted, on the twenty-second of October, into Henry's presence, President Séguier delivered before the Duke of Guise, Constable Montmorency, Marshal St. André, and other dignitaries civil and ecclesiastical, an address full of noble sentiments.[597]

Speech of President Séguier in opposition.

"Parliament," said Séguier, "consists of one hundred and sixty members, who, for ability and conscientious discharge of duty, cannot be matched. I know not any of the number to be alienated from the true faith. Indeed, no greater misfortune could befall the judicature, than that the supreme court should forfeit the confidence of the monarch by whom its members were appointed. It is not from personal fear that we oppose the introduction of the Inquisition. An inquisition, when well administered, may not, perhaps, always be injurious. Yet Trajan, an excellent emperor, abolished it as against the early Christians, persecuted as the 'Lutherans' now are; and he preferred to depend upon the declarations of those who revealed themselves, rather than to foster the spread of the curse of informers and sow fear and distrust in families. But it is as magistrates that we dread, or rather abhor, the establishment of a bloody tribunal, before which denunciation takes the place of proof, where the accused is deprived of the natural means of defence, and where no judicial forms are observed. We allege nothing of which we cannot furnish recent examples. Many of those whom the agents of the Inquisition had condemned have appealed to parliament. In revising these procedures, we found them so full of absurdities and follies, that, if charity forbids our suspecting those who already discharge this function among us of dishonesty and malice, it permits and even bids us deplore their ignorance and presumption. Yet it is to such judges that you are asked, Sire, to deliver over your faithful subjects, bound hand and foot, by removing the resource of appeal."

Is it politic, the orator proceeded to ask, for the king to introduce an edict standing in direct contradiction to that by which he has given to his own courts exclusive jurisdiction in the trial of the laity and simple clerks, and thus initiate a conflict of laws? Or has the monarch—by whose authority, as supreme head of justice, the decisions of parliament are rendered, whose name stands at the beginning, and whose seal is affixed to the termination of every writ—the right to cut off an appeal to himself, which his subjects, by reason of their paying tribute, can justly claim in return? Rather let the sovereign remedy be applied. In order to put an end to heresy, let the pattern of the primitive church be observed, which was established not by sword or by fire, but which, on the contrary, resisted both sword and fire through long years of persecution. Yet it endured, and even grew, by the doctrine and exemplary life of good prelates and pastors, residing in their charges. At present the prelates are non-residents, and the people hunger for the Word of God. Now, it is every man's duty to believe the Holy Scriptures, and to bear testimony to his belief by good works. Whoever refuses to believe them, and accuses others of being "Lutherans," is more of a heretic than the "Lutherans" themselves.[598] The remonstrance of parliament, said Séguier, in fine, is in the interest of the poor people and of the courtiers themselves, whom others more needy will seek to strip of their possessions by means of the Inquisition and a brace of false witnesses.[599]

The speech was listened to with attention by Henry, and its close was applauded by his courtiers, who appreciated the truth of the warning conveyed. Two days later the king informed the deputies that he had determined to take the matter into further consideration; and, after their return, not only Henry, but also Guise and Montmorency, sent letters to parliament in which the mission of Séguier and Du Drac was referred to in complimentary terms.[600]

Villegagnon sent with Protestant emigrants to Brazil.

While the influence of the royal court was exerted, in the manner just indicated, to obtain entrance for the Spanish Inquisition, two events occurred equally deserving our attention—an attempt at the colonization of the New World with emigrants of the reformed faith, and the organization of the first Protestant church in France. Through the countenance and under the patronage of an illustrious personage whose name will, from this time forward, frequently figure on these pages—Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France—a knight of Malta named Villegagnon, Vice-admiral of Brittany, obtained from Henry "two large ships of two hundred tons burthen," fully equipped and provided with the requisite armament, as well as a third vessel carrying provisions.[601] Having embarked with a large number of gentlemen, artisans, and sailors, and having lost some time by being driven back into port to refit after a storm, he at length set sail for America, and anchored in the bay of Rio de Janeiro on the thirteenth of November, 1555. Most of the colonists were adherents of the religion at this time violently persecuted in France; and it is said that Coligny's support had been gained for the enterprise by the promise, on the part of Villegagnon, that in America the reformed should find a safe asylum.[602]

Fort Coligny founded.

No sooner, therefore, had the small company effected a lodgment on a small and rocky islet, opposite the present city of Rio de Janeiro, than Villegagnon conferred on the fort he had erected the name of Coligny, and wrote to the admiral, as he did subsequently to Calvin, requesting that pastors should be sent from Geneva.[603] The petition being granted, Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartier were despatched—the first Protestant ministers to cross the Atlantic. They were received by the vice-admiral with extravagant demonstrations of joy. A church was instituted on the model of that of Geneva; and Villegagnon recognized the validity of its rites by partaking of the holy communion when for the first time administered, on the shores of the Western Continent, according to the reformed practice.

Villegagnon becomes an enemy to the Protestants,

and brings ruin to the expedition.

Before long, however, a complete revolution of sentiment and plan was disclosed. The pretext was an animated discussion touching the eucharist, between the Protestant pastors, on the one hand, and Villegagnon, supported by Jean Cointas, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, on the other.[604] The solicitations of the Cardinal of Lorraine, together with a keener appreciation of the danger of harboring the "new doctrines," may have been the cause.[605] Chartier was put out of the way by being sent back to Europe, ostensibly to consult Calvin. Richier and others were so roughly handled that they were glad to leave the island for the continent, and subsequently to return in a leaky vessel to their native land.[606] But the infant enterprise had received a fatal blow. Nearly all the deceived Protestants carried home the tidings of their misfortunes, and deterred others from following their disastrous example. Three, remaining in Brazil, were thrown into the sea by Villegagnon's command. A few suffered martyrdom after the fall of the intended capital of "Antarctic France" into the hands of the Portuguese. As to Villegagnon himself, he returned to Europe the virulent enemy of Coligny, and turned his feeble pen to the refutation of Protestantism.[607]

The first Protestant church organized in Paris.

But if ruin overtook an enterprise from which French statesmen had looked for new power and wealth for their country, and the reformers had anticipated the rapid advance of their religion in the New World, the founding of the first Protestant church in Paris proved a more auspicious event. More than thirty years had Protestantism been gradually gaining ground; but, up to the year 1555, it had been wanting in organization. The tide of persecution had surged too violently over the evangelical Christians of the capital to permit them to think of instituting a church, with pastors and consistory, after the model furnished by the free city of Geneva, or of holding public worship at stated times and places, or of regularly administering the sacraments. "The martyrs," says a contemporary writer, "were, properly speaking, the only preachers."[608] But now, the courage of the Parisian Protestants rising with the increased severity of the cruel measures devised against them, they were prepared to accept the idea of organizing themselves as an ecclesiastical community. To this a simple incident led the way. In the house of a nobleman named La Ferrière, a small body of Protestants met secretly for the reading of the Scriptures and for prayer. Their host had left his home in the province of Maine to enjoy, in the crowded capital, greater immunity from observation than he could enjoy in his native city, and to avoid the necessity of submitting his expected offspring to the rite of baptism as superstitiously observed in the Roman Catholic Church. On the birth of his child, he set before the little band of his fellow-believers his reluctance to countenance the corruptions of that church, and his inability to go elsewhere in search of a purer sacrament. He adjured them to meet his exigency and that of other parents, by the consecration of one of their own number as a minister. He denounced the anger of the Almighty if they suffered his child to die without a participation in the ordinance instituted by the Master whom they professed to serve. So earnest an appeal could not be resisted. After fasting and earnest prayer the choice was made (September, 1555). John le Maçon, surnamed La Rivière, was a youth of Angers, twenty-two years of age, who for religion's sake had forsaken home, wealth, and brilliant prospects of advancement. He had narrowly escaped the clutches of the magistrates, to whom his own father, in his anger, would have given him up. This person was now set apart as the first reformed minister of Paris. A brief constitution for the nascent church was adopted. A consistory of elders and deacons was established. In this simple manner were laid the foundations of a church destined to serve as the prototype of a multitude of others soon to arise in all parts of France.[609] It was not the least remarkable circumstance attending its origin, that it arose in the midst of the most hostile populace in France, and at a time when the introduction of a new and more odious form of inquisition was under serious consideration. Nor can the thoughtful student of history regard it in any other light than that of a Providential interposition in its behalf, that for two years the infant church was protected from the fate of extermination that threatened it, by the rise of a fresh war between France and Spain—a war originating in the perfidy of the Pope and of Henry the Second, the two great enemies of the reformed doctrines in France—and terminating in a peace ignominious to the royal persecutor.

The example followed in the provinces.

The fagot still reigns.

The signal given by Paris was welcomed in the provinces. In rapid succession organized churches arose in Meaux, Angers, Poitiers, Bourges, Issoudun, Aubigny, Blois, Tours, Pau, and Troyes—all within the compass of two years.[610] The Protestants, thirsting for the preaching of the Word of God, turned their eyes toward Geneva, Neufchâtel, and Lausanne, and implored the gift of ministers qualified for the office of instruction. Hitherto the awakening of the intellect and heart long stupefied by superstition had been partial. Now it seemed to be general. Three months had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the church at Paris, before it was asking of the Swiss reformers a second minister.[611] A month later, Angers already had a corps of three pastors. "Entreat the Lord," writes the eminent theologian who has left us these details, "to advance His kingdom, and to confirm with the spirit of faith and patience our brethren that are in the very jaws of the lion. Assuredly the tyrant will at length be compelled either to annihilate entire cities, or to concede someplace for the truth.[612]" Meanwhile the fires of persecution blazed high in various parts of France, but produced no sensible impression on the growth of the Reformation.[613]

Henry II. breaks the truce of Vaucelles.

Cardinal Caraffa.

On the fifth of February, 1556, Henry concluded with Charles the Fifth, who had lately abdicated the imperial crown, and with Philip the Second, his son, the truce of Vaucelles, which either side swore to observe for the space of five years.[614] In the month of July of the same year Henry broke the truce and openly renewed hostilities. Paul the Fourth, the reigning pontiff, was the agent in bringing about this sudden change. The inducement held out to Henry was the prospect of the investiture of the duchy of Milan and the kingdom of Naples; and Paul readily agreed to absolve the French monarch from the oath which he had so solemnly taken only five months before. Constable Montmorency and his nephew, Admiral Coligny, opposed the act of perfidy; but it was advocated by the Duke of Guise, by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and by one whose seductive entreaties were more implicitly obeyed than those of all others—the dissolute Diana of Poitiers.[615] And the negotiation had been intrusted to skilful hands.[616] Cardinal Caraffa, the pontiff's nephew, was surpassed in intrigue by no other member of the Sacred College. No conscientious scruples interfered with the discharge of his commission. For Caraffa was at heart an unbeliever. As his hand was reverently raised to pronounce upon the crowds gathered to witness his entry into Paris the customary benediction in the name of the triune God, and his lips were seen to move, there were those near his person, it is said, that caught the ribald words which were really uttered instead: "Let us deceive this people, since it wishes to be deceived."[617]

Fresh projects to introduce the Spanish Inquisition.

Henry's letter to the Pope.

It was fitting that to such a legate should be committed the task of making a fresh effort to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into France. The Cardinal of Lorraine had been absent in Italy the year before, when the first attempt failed through the resolute resistance of parliament. He was now present to lend his active co-operation. Yet with all his exertions the king could not silence the opposition of the judges,[618] and was finally induced to defer a third attempt until the year 1557, and to give a different form to the undertaking. In the month of February of this year, Henry applied to the Pontiff, begging him to appoint, by Apostolic brief, a commission of cardinals or other prelates, who "might proceed to the introduction of the said inquisition in the lawful and accustomed form and manner, under the authority of the Apostolic See, and with the invocation of the secular arm and temporal jurisdiction." He promised, on his part, to give the matter his most lively attention, "since he desired nothing in this world so much as to see his people delivered from so dangerous a pestilence as this accursed heresy."[619] And he solicited the greatest expedition on the part of the Pope, for it was an affair that demanded diligence.

The papal bull.

The three inquisitors-general.

Odet, Cardinal of Châtillon.

His Protestant proclivities.

Paul, who was in the constant habit of saying that the inquisition was the sole weapon suited to the Holy See, the only battering-ram by means of which heresy could be demolished,[620] did not decline the royal invitation. On the twenty-sixth of April he published a bull appointing a commission consisting of the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Châtillon, with power to delegate their authority to others. Of the three prelates, the first was the real instigator of the cruelties practised during this and the subsequent reigns. The Cardinal of Bourbon was known to be as ignorant as he was inimical to the Reformation, and could be depended upon to support his colleague. The Cardinal of Châtillon, brother of Admiral Coligny and of D'Andelot, was added, it is not improbable, from motives of policy. He was already suspected of favoring the reformed doctrines, which subsequently he openly espoused. Indeed, nearly six years before, the English ambassador, Pickering, after alluding to new measures of persecution devised against the Protestants, wrote: "Cardinal Châtillon, as I hear, is a great aider of Lutherans, and hath been a great stay in this matter, which otherwise had been before now concluded, to the destruction of any man that had almost spoken of God's Word. Nevertheless, the Protestants here fear that it cannot come to a much better end, where such a number of bishops and cardinals bear the swing."[621] Châtillon's enemies hoped, by placing him on this inquisitorial commission, where his vote would be powerless in opposition to that of the other two cardinals, to compel him either to enter the rank of persecutors, or declare himself openly for the Reformation, and thus destroy his own credit and that of his powerful family.[622]

The bull confirmed by Henry II.

The papal bull was promptly confirmed by the king, who, in a declaration given at Compiègne, on the twenty-fourth of July, 1557, permitted "his very dear cousins," the three cardinals, to exercise the office of inquisitors-general throughout the monarchy. From sentences given by their subalterns, this document permitted an appeal to be taken, but it was to a body appointed for the purpose by the inquisitors themselves.[623] Parliament, however, again interposed the prerogative it had assumed, of remonstrance and delay, and the king's declaration, as well as the papal bull, remained inoperative.[624]

Judicial sympathy with the victims.

Edict of Compiègne, July 24, 1557.

It is not surprising, perhaps, that the institution of the sacred office, with its bloody code and relentless tribunal, was pressed so repeatedly upon the French monarch and parliament for their acceptance. The number of the Protestants was not only increasing in a most alarming manner,[625] but the very judges before whom, when discovered, the Protestants were brought, began to show signs of compassion, if not of sympathy. So it happened that, in one provincial town, two persons caught with the packages of "Lutheran" books they had brought into France, after they had made an explicit confession of their faith, were condemned, not to the flames, but to the trifling punishment of public whipping; and scarcely had the blows begun to fall upon the backs of the pedlers, when some of the magistrates themselves threw their cloaks around the culprits, whose confiscated books were afterward secretly returned to them, or bought and paid for.[626] To such a formidable height had this irregularity grown, that, on the very day upon which the confirmation of the three proposed inquisitors-general was made, Henry published a new edict (at Compiègne, on the twenty-fourth of July, 1557) intended to secure an adherence to the penalties prescribed by previous laws. The reader of this edict, remembering the frequency with which the estrapade had done its bloody work for the last quarter of a century, will not be astonished to read that the punishment of death is affixed to the secret or public profession of any other religion than the Roman Catholic. But he will rejoice, for the sake of our common humanity, to learn that "it very frequently happens that our said judges are moved with pity by the holy and malicious words of those found guilty of the said crimes;" and that, to secure the uniform infliction of the extreme penalty upon the professors of the reformed faith, it was now necessary for the king to remove from the judges the slightest pretext or authority for mitigating the sentence that condemned a Protestant to the flames or gallows.[627]

Defeat of St. Quentin, Aug. 10, 1557.

Under cover of the war during three years, Protestantism made rapid strides in France. But the contest itself was disastrous to its originators. The constable, having, when hostilities had once been undertaken contrary to his advice, been unwilling to resign the chief command to which his office entitled him, assumed the defence of Paris from the north, while to his younger rival in arms, the Duke of Guise, was assigned the more brilliant part in the enterprise—the conquest of the kingdom of Naples. Montmorency's success, however, fell far short of the reputation he enjoyed for consummate generalship. Not only did he fail to relieve his nephews Coligny and D'Andelot, who had shut themselves up with a handful of men in the fortress of St. Quentin; but he himself (on the tenth of August, 1557) met with a signal defeat in which the flower of the French army was routed, and many of its leaders, including the constable himself, were taken prisoners.[628]

Rage against the "Lutherans."

The French capital was thrown into a paroxysm of fear on receipt of the intelligence. The road to Paris lay open to the victorious army. The king, not less than the people, expected to hear the Spaniards within a few brief days thundering at the very gates of the city. Charles the Fifth, from his retirement at Yuste, is said to have asked the courier with impatience, whether his son was already in Paris.[629] In the minds of the populace, disappointment and fear were mingled with rage against "the accursed sect of the Lutherans"—the reputed authors of all the public calamities. Every prediction which the priests had for a generation been ringing in the ears of the people seemed now to be in course of fulfilment. In the startling defeat of a large and well-appointed army of France, led by an experienced general, all eyes read tokens of the evident displeasure of the Almighty, not because of the ignorance and immorality of the people, or the bad doctrine and worse lives of its spiritual leaders, or the barbarous cruelty, the shameless impurity, and unexampled bad faith of the court; but because of the existence of heretics who denied the authority of the Pope, and refused to bow down and worship the transubstantiated wafer. The popular anger was the more ready to kindle because the harsh measures of the government had confessedly failed of accomplishing their object, and because—to use the expressive language of the royal edict—the fire still burned beneath the ashes.[630] An incident which happened little more than a fortnight after the battle of St. Quentin disclosed the bitter fruits of the slanderous reports and violent teachings disseminated among the excitable inhabitants of Paris.

The affair of the Rue St. Jacques, Sept. 4, 1557.

Assault upon the worshippers.

The Protestants of the capital, far from rejoicing over the misfortunes of the kingdom, as their adversaries falsely asserted, met even more frequently than before to offer their united prayers in its behalf. On the evening of the fourth of September, 1557,[631] three or four hundred persons, of every rank of society, quietly repaired to a house in the Rue St. Jacques, almost under the very shadow of the Sorbonne, where the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be administered according to previous appointment. Their coming together had not been so noiseless, however, as to escape the attention of some priests, residing in the Collége du Plessis, on the other side of the way, whose suspicions had for some time been fixed upon the spot.[632] The reformed were not disturbed during the exercise of their worship. But when, toward midnight, they prepared to return to their homes, the fury of their enemies discharged upon them the full force of its pent-up energies. A fanatical crowd blocked the street or filled the opposite windows, ready to overwhelm with a shower of stones and missiles of all descriptions any that might leave the protection of the house. Continual accessions were made of those whom the cries of "Thieves!" "Robbers!" "Conspirators against the realm!" attracted to the place. The discovery of the fact that it was a company not of robbers, but of "Lutherans," only inflamed the rage of the new-comers. The cry was now for blood. Every avenue of escape was guarded, and bonfires lighted here and there dispelled the friendly darkness. Carts and wagons were drawn across the streets, and armed men occupied the street-corners, or, if too cowardly to expose themselves to any danger, stood ready at doors and windows to thrust the fugitives through with their pikes.

The assembled Protestants, awakened to their danger, at first expected a general massacre. But the exhortations of their pastors and elders gave them new courage. In the midst of the storm raging without, they betook themselves to prayer. At length the necessity was recognized of coming to a prompt decision. To await the coming of the civil authorities, for whom their enemies had sent, was to give themselves up to certain death. Nothing remained but to force their way out—a course recommended, we are told, by those who knew the cowardice of a Parisian mob. The men who were provided with swords were placed in the front rank, the unarmed followed in their wake. Again and again small companies issued into the street and faced the angry storm. Each successive company reached a safe refuge. In fact, of all that adopted the bolder course of action, only one person was knocked down and left upon the ground to be brutally murdered and suffer the most shameful indignities. There were, however, many—one hundred and twenty or more women and children, with a few men—whom fear prevented from following the example of their companions. Around them the rabble, balked of the greater part of its expected victims, raged with increased fury. At one moment they presented themselves at the windows to the view of their enemies, in the vain hope that the sight of so much innocence and helplessness would secure compassion. When only blind hatred and malice were exhibited in return, they withdrew and quietly awaited the fate which they believed to be in store for them at the hands of the mob. From this they were delivered by the sudden arrival of Martine, the king's "procureur" belonging to the Châtelet, with a strong detachment of commissaries and sergeants.

With great difficulty restraining the impetuosity of the mob, the magistrate made on the very spot an examination into the services that had been held. The whole story was told him in simple terms. He found that, while the Protestants had been assembling, the Scriptures had for a long time been read in the French language. The minister had next offered prayer, the whole company kneeling upon the floor. He had afterward set forth the institution of the holy supper as given by St. Paul, had exhibited its true utility and how it ought to be approached, and had debarred from the communion all seditious, disobedient, impure, and other unworthy participants, forbidding them to come near to the sacred table. Then those who had been deemed to be in a fit frame to receive the sacrament had presented themselves, and received the bread and the wine from the hands of the ministers, with the words: "This is the communion of the body and blood of the Lord." Prayers had followed for the king and the prosperity of his kingdom, for all the poor in their affliction, and for the church in general. The services had closed with the singing of several psalms.

Treatment of the prisoners.

So clear a confession was amply sufficient to justify the arrest of the entire company. Men, women, and children were dragged at early dawn to the prison. But their escort was too small, or too indifferent, to afford protection from the insults and violence of the immense throng through the midst of which they passed.[633] Not content with applying alike to men and to women the most opprobrious epithets, the rabble tore their clothing, covered them with mud and filth, and dealt many a blow—especially to those who from their long robes or age were suspected of being preachers.[634] Into these outrages no judicial investigation was ever instituted, so prevalent was the persuasion that the zeal of the people in defence of the established faith must not be too narrowly watched.

Malicious rumors.

The blame for these excesses must not, however, be laid exclusively to the account of the populace. There were rumors afloat that owed their origin to the deliberate and malicious invention of the better instructed, and that were firmly believed by the ignorant masses. The nocturnal meetings, to which the Protestants were driven by persecution, were represented as devoted to the most abominable orgies. The Protestants were accused of eating little children. It was boldly stated that a luxurious banquet was spread, and that at its conclusion the candles were extinguished, and a scene of the most indiscriminate lewdness ensued.[635] One of the judges of the tribunal of the Châtelet was found sufficiently pliant to declare, in contradiction to the unanimous testimony of the accused, that preparations for the repetition of similar crimes had been discovered in the rooms of the house in the rue St. Jacques, where the Protestants had been surprised. These infamous accusations even found their way into print, and were disseminated far and wide by the priestly party.

Trials and executions.

While the poor prisoners were confined in the most loathsome cells—highwaymen and murderers being removed to better quarters to make room for Christians[636]—a judicial investigation was set on foot. The king himself expedited the trials.[637] Within little more than three weeks from the time of their apprehension, three Protestants were put to death (on the twenty-seventh of September). Both sexes and the extremes of youth and old age were represented in these victims. To one, a beautiful young lady of wealth and rank, barely twenty-three years old, the favor was granted of being strangled before her body was consigned to the flames. Yet even in her case the cruel executioner had not abstained from first applying a firebrand wantonly and indecently to different parts of her person.[638] Her companions were burned alive. One of them was an advocate in parliament; both were elders of the reformed church. Five days later a physician and a solicitor met the same fate, but endured greater sufferings, as the wind blew the flames from beneath them, prolonging their torture; and these were quickly followed by two students at Paris, both of them from the southern part of the realm (on the twenty-third of October).[639]

Intercession of the Swiss cantons and others.

Calvin's interest.

Meanwhile the wretched prisoners were not deserted by their brethren. Their innocence of the dreadful crimes laid to their charge was maintained in pamphlets, which showed that these accusations were but repetitions of slanders invented by the heathen to overwhelm the early Christians. Their doctrinal orthodoxy was proved by citations from the early church fathers.[640] The Protestants of Paris found means to introduce a long remonstrance into the very chamber of the king. Unfortunately, it had as little influence upon him as similar productions had had with his predecessor. In Switzerland and in a portion of Germany the tidings made a deep impression. Less than two weeks after the blow had been struck at the small community of Parisian Protestants, Calvin wrote the first of a series of letters calculated to sustain their drooping courage, and suggested some of the wise ends Providence might have in view in permitting so severe a discipline.[641] Meantime he applied himself vigorously to arouse in their behalf an effective intervention. "My good brethren," he wrote to the people of Lausanne, "though all the rest should not suffice to move the hearts of those brethren to whom an appeal is made, yet this emergency admits of no delay. It can scarcely be but that, amid so many tortures, first one and then another be involved in them, until the number of sufferers become an infinite one. In short, the whole kingdom will be in flames. The question no longer is how to satisfy the desire of the poor brethren, but, if we have a single spark of humanity within us, to succor them in such extremity.... Though money be not promptly obtained elsewhere, yet shall I make such efforts, should I be obliged to pledge my head and my feet, that it be forthcoming here."[642]

Beza, with his associates, Carmel, Farel, and Budé, at the same time, by Calvin's request, took active steps to induce the Protestant cantons and princes to intercede with Henry, and their exertions were not in vain.[643] It was the object of the reformers to enlist the intervention of those Protestant powers, in particular, whose alliance and assistance might be deemed indispensable by the French king in his present straits.[644] The four "evangelical" Swiss cantons, encouraged by the success of a recent mission in behalf of the Waldenses of Piedmont, sent to Paris a deputation, whose appearance was greeted by the Protestants with the utmost joy. The ambassadors, however, allowed themselves to be cajoled and deceived by the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom they had the imprudence to intrust their petition. In reply to their address to the king, they were told (on the fifth of November), in the name of his Majesty, that he invited the confederates in future to trouble themselves no further with the internal affairs of his kingdom, especially in matters of religion, since he was resolved to follow in the steps of his predecessors.[645] Discouraged by this rebuff, they did not even attempt to press the matter upon the king's notice, or by a personal interview endeavor to mitigate his anger against their brethren. It had been better never to have engaged in the intercession than support it so weakly.[646] The German princes could not be induced to give to the affair the consideration it merited; but a letter of the Count Palatine seems to have somewhat diminished the violence of the persecution.[647]

Constancy of most of the prisoners.

The constancy of the victims, by disconcerting the plans of their enemies, doubtless contributed much to the temporary lull. No one attracted in this respect greater attention than the most illustrious person among the prisoners—the daughter of the Seigneur de Rambouillet and wife of De Rentigny, standard-bearer of the Duke of Guise—who resolutely rejected the pardon, based on a renunciation of her faith, which her father and husband brought her from the king, and urged her with tears to accept.[648] Others, who, on account of their youth, were expected to be but poor advocates of their doctrinal views, proved more than a match for their examiners. The course was finally adopted of distributing the prisoners, about one hundred in number, in various monastic establishments, whose inmates might win them back to the Roman Catholic Church, whether by argument or by harsher means. The judges could thus rid themselves of the irksome task of lighting new fires, and the energies of the religious orders were put to some account. But the result hardly met the expectations formed. If a few Protestants obtained their liberty, and incurred the censures of their brethren, by unworthy confessions of principle,[649] many more were allowed to escape by the monks, who soon had reason to desire "that their cloisters might be purged of such pests, through fear lest the contagion should spread farther," and found it "burdensome to support without compensation so large a number of needy persons."[650]

Controversial pamphlets.

While the Protestants were thus demonstrating, by the fortitude with which they encountered severe suffering and even death, the sincerity of their convictions and the purity of their lives, their enemies were unremitting in exertions to aggravate the odium in which they were held by the people. An inquisitor and doctor of the Sorbonne, the notorious De Mouchy, or Demochares, as he called himself, wrote a pamphlet to prove them heretics by the decisions of the doctors. A bishop found the signs of the true church in the bells at the sound of which the Catholics assembled, and marks of Antichrist in the pistols and arquebuses whose discharge was said to be the signal for the gathering of the heretics. A third controversialist went so far as to accuse the Protestants not only of impurity, but of denying the divinity of Christ, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and even the existence of God.[651]

Capture of Calais, January, 1558.

Meanwhile, public affairs assumed a more encouraging aspect. Francis of Guise, recalled from Italy, where his ill-success had been the salvation of the poor Waldenses in their Alpine valleys,[652] had assumed command of a large force, consisting partly of the troops he had taken to Italy, partly of noblemen and gentlemen that flocked to his standard in answer to the king's summons for the defence of the French capital. With this army he succeeded in capturing, in the beginning of January, 1558, the city of Calais, for two hundred years an English possession.[653] The achievement was not a difficult one. The fortifications had been suffered to go to ruin, and the small garrison was utterly insufficient to resist the force unexpectedly sent against it.[654] But the success raised still higher the pride of the Guises.

Registry of the inquisition edict.

Antoine of Navarre, Condé, and other princes favor the Reformation.

The auspicious moment was seized by the Cardinal of Lorraine to induce Henry, on the ninth of January, to hold in parliament a lit de justice, and compel the court to register in his presence the obnoxious edict of the previous year, establishing the inquisition.[655] But the engine which had been esteemed both by Pope and king the only sure means of repressing heresy, failed of its end. New churches arose; those that previously existed rapidly grew.[656] The Reformation, also, now, for the first time, was openly avowed by men of the first rank in the kingdom. Its opponents were filled with dismay upon beholding Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, his brother Louis, Prince of Condé, and François d'Andelot, brother of Admiral Coligny, at the head of the hitherto despised "Lutherans." Antoine de Bourbon-Vendôme was, next to the reigning monarch and his children, the first prince of the blood. Since his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret—in consequence of which he became titular King of Navarre—he had resided for much of the time in the city of Pan, where his more illustrious son, Henry the Fourth, was born. Here he had attended the preaching of Protestant ministers. On his return to court, not long after the capture of Calais, he took the decided step of frequenting the gatherings of the Parisian Protestants. Subsequently he rescued a prominent minister—Antoine de Chandieu—from the Châtelet, in which he was imprisoned, by going in person and claiming him as a member of his household.[657] Well would it have been for France had the Navarrese king always displayed the same courage. Condé and D'Andelot were scarcely less valuable accessions to the ranks of the Protestants.

Embassy from the Protestant Electors of Germany.

Other causes contributed to delay the full execution of the plan of the Inquisition. A united embassy from the three Protestant Electors of Germany—the Count Palatine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Marquis of Brandenburg—and from the Dukes of Deux Ponts and Wurtemberg, bearing a powerful appeal to Henry in behalf of his persecuted subjects, arrived in Paris.[658] Such noble and influential petitioners could not be dismissed—especially at a time when their assistance was indispensable—without a gracious reply;[659] and, in order that the German princes might not have occasion to accuse Henry of too flagrant bad faith, the persecution was allowed for a short time to abate.

Psalm-singing on the Pré aux Clercs.

An incident of an apparently trivial character, which happened at Paris not long after, proved very clearly that the severities inflicted on some of those connected with the meeting in the Rue St. Jacques had utterly failed of accomplishing their object. On the southern side of the Seine, opposite the Louvre, there stretched, just outside of the city walls, a large open space—the public grounds of the university, known as the Pré aux Clercs.[660] This spot was the favorite promenade of the higher classes of the Parisians. It happened that, on a certain afternoon in May,[661] a few voices in the crowd began to sing one of the psalms which Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze had translated into French. At the sound the walks and games were forsaken. The tune was quickly caught up, and soon the vast concourse joining in the words, either through sympathy or through love of novelty, the curious were attracted from all quarters to listen to so strange an entertainment. For many successive evenings the same performance was repeated. The numbers increased, it was said, to five or six thousand. Many of the chief personages of the kingdom were to be seen among those who took part. The King and Queen of Navarre were particularly noticed because of the pleasure they manifested. By the inmates of the neighboring College of the Sorbonne the demonstration was interpreted as an open avowal of heresy. The use of the French language in devotional singing was calculated to throw contempt upon the time-honored usage of performing divine service in the Latin tongue.[662] To the king, at this time absent from the city, the psalm-singing was represented as a beginning of sedition, which must be suppressed lest it should lead to the destruction at once of his faith and of his authority. Henry, too ready a listener to such suggestions, ordered the irregularity to cease; and the Protestant ministers and elders of Paris, desirous of giving an example of obedience to the civil power in things indifferent, enjoined on their members to desist from singing the psalms elsewhere than in their own homes.[663]

Conference of Cardinals Lorraine and Granvelle.

The visit of the Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, who was permitted to meet her son upon the borders of France, afforded a good opportunity for an informal discussion of the terms of the peace that was to put an end to a war of which both parties were equally tired. There, in the fortress of Peronne, the Cardinal of Lorraine held a conference with Antoine Perrenot, Cardinal of Granvelle; and a friendship was cemented between the former and the Spanish court boding no good for the quiet of France or the stability of the throne.

D'Andelot, Coligny's younger brother, denounced.

Little was effected in the direction of peace. But Cardinal Lorraine received valuable hints touching the best method for humbling the enemies of his house. Of these no one was more formidable than D'Andelot, who had distinguished himself greatly in the war on the Flemish borders. This young nobleman, the Bishop of Arras affirmed, had been found, during the captivity from which he had recently escaped, to be infected with the contagion of the "new doctrines." Since his return to France, he had even ventured to send a heretical volume to console his brother, the admiral, in prison. The cardinal, jealous of the houses of Châtillon and Montmorency, promptly reported to the king the story of D'Andelot's defection from the faith. His brother, the Duke of Guise, loudly declared that, although he was ready to march to the siege of Thionville, he could entertain no hope of success if D'Andelot were suffered to accompany him, in command of the French infantry.[664]

D'Andelot in Brittany.

The sympathy of the younger Châtillon was daily becoming more openly avowed. On a recent visit to Brittany (April, 1558), he had taken with him Fleury and Loiseleur, Protestant ministers. For the first time, the westernmost province of France heard the doctrines preached a generation before in Meaux. The crowd of provincial nobles, flocking to pay their respects to D'Andelot and his wife, Claude de Rieux, heiress of vast estates in this region, were both surprised and gratified at enjoying the opportunity of listening to preachers whose voice had penetrated to almost every nook of France save this. So palpable were the effects, that D'Andelot's brief tour in Brittany furnished additional grounds for Henry's suspicions respecting the young nobleman's soundness in the faith.[665]

D'Andelot summoned to appear before the king.

His manly defence.

D'Andelot was summoned to appear before the king and clear himself of the charges preferred against him. Henry is said, indeed, to have sent previously D'Andelot's brother, the Cardinal of Châtillon, and his cousin, Marshal Montmorency, the constable's eldest son, to urge him to make a submissive and satisfactory explanation. But their exertions were futile. Henry began the conversation by reminding D'Andelot of the great intimacy he had always allowed him and the love he bore him. He told him that he had expected of him anything rather than a revolt from the religion of his prince and an adherence to new doctrines. And he announced as the principal points in his conduct which he condemned, that he had allowed the "Lutheran" views to be preached on his estates, that he had frequented the Pré aux Clercs, that he absented himself from the mass, and that he had sent "books from Geneva" to his brother, the admiral, in his captivity. D'Andelot replied with frankness and intrepidity. He professed gratitude for the many favors he had received from the monarch, a gratitude he had never tired of making known by perilling life and property in that prince's cause. But the doctrine he had caused to be preached was good and holy, and such as his forefathers had held. He denied having been at the Pré aux Clercs, but avowed his entire approval of the service of praise in which the multitude had there engaged. As for his absence from the mass, he thanked God for removing the veil of ignorance that once covered his eyes, and declared that, with the Almighty's favor, he would never again be present at its celebration. In fine, he begged Henry to regard his life and property as being entirely at the royal disposition, but to leave him a free conscience. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who alone of the courtiers was present, here interposed to warn the speaker of the bad way into which he had entered; but D'Andelot replied by appealing to the prelate's own conscience in testimony of the truth of the doctrines he had once favored, but now, from ambitious motives, persecuted.