Note 38 — Book I. LETTERS TO MAXIMILIAN.

Jean de Morvilliers was born at Blois in 1506. He was ambassador at Venice from 1546 to 1550, and was rewarded for his services by receiving the Bishopric of Orleans in 1552. After he became bishop, the Chapter of his cathedral, by a statute passed in November 1552, ordered him to shave off his beard. He refused to comply, and the quarrel raged fiercely for four years, till finally in 1556 it was appeased by a letter from the King to the Chapter, in which he declared that he required to send Morvilliers to various countries in which a beard was necessary, and therefore ordered the Chapter to receive him beard and all. He did not, however, take possession of his cathedral till 1559. Francis II. appointed him a Privy Councillor, and in 1561 he took part in the Conference of Poissy, and in the following year attended the Council of Trent, as one of the French representatives. He was afterwards ambassador to the Duke of Savoy, and in 1564 was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Troyes, between Charles IX. and Queen Elizabeth. In the same year he gave up his Bishopric in favour of his nephew. On the disgrace of the Chancellor l’Hôpital, in 1568, he became Keeper of the Seals, but in 1571 had to resign them to Birague. In de Thou’s opinion (iii. 209), he was honest and prudent, but cautious to the verge of timidity, and therefore always pursued a policy of expediency. He was the head of the party who were in favour of peace but thought no religious reform was required, and who therefore, in order to remain on good terms with the extreme Catholic party headed by the Guises, did not hesitate to evade or violate the pledges given to the Protestants. See Thuanus, iii. 35. De Thou’s estimate of his character is borne out by a State-paper preserved by d’Aubigné (Histoire, vol. ii. bk. i. ch. ii.), written by Morvilliers at the request of Charles IX. in 1572, in opposition to Coligny’s project of war with Spain.