Note 972 — Chapter X

Pius V was elected pope January 17, 1566 (see Hilliger, Die Wahl Pius V zum Päpste, 1907). He had been grand inquisitor before his elevation, and imparted a ferocious zeal to the holy office (see Bertelotti, Martiri di Libero Pensero e Vittime della Sta. Inquisizione nei Secoli, XVI, XVII, e XVIII, Rome, 1892). The violence of his character and his bigotry led to his committing several acts injurious to the Catholic cause, but it was due to him that the Spanish, Venetian, and papal fleets defeated the Turks at Lepanto. He wrote on March 28, 1569 to Catherine de Medici: “Si Votre Majesté continue, comme elle a fait constamment, dans la rectitude de son âme? et dans la simplicité de son cœur, à ne chercher que l’honneur de Dieu toutpuissent, et à combattre ouvertement et ardemment les ennemis de la religion catholique, jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient tous massacrés (ad internecionem usque), qu’elle soit assurée que le secours divin ne lui manquera jamais, et que Dieu lui préparera, ainsi qu’au roi, son fils, de plus grandes victoires: ce n’est que par l’extermination entière des hérétiques (deletis omnibus haeritics) que le roi pourra rendre à ce noble royaume l’ancien culte de la religion catholique.”—Potter, Pie V, 35; letter of the Pope to Catherine de Medici, March 28, 1569. The original Latin version of this letter, the salient words of which are in parentheses above, is in Epistola SS. Pii V, ed. Gouban, III, 154, Antwerp, 1640. The editor was secretary to the marquis de Castel-Rodrigio, ambassador of Philip IV to the Holy See. An abridged edition was published by Potter, Lettres de St. Pie V sur les affaires religieuses de son temps en France, Paris, 1826. The letter is one of congratulation written to Catherine de Medici upon the Catholic victory of Jarnac and the death of the prince of Condé. (Cf. the letter of April 13, 1569, on p. 156 to the same effect.) Nevertheless, even the Pope regarded the total destruction of the French Protestants as a result more devoutly to be wished for than practicable. Pope Pius V, however, was not the first advocate of destruction, for as early as 1556 François Lepicart gave the same advice to Henry II: “Le roy devroit pour un temps contrefaire le luthérien parmi eux [the Protestants], afin que, prenant de là occasion de s’assembler hautement partout, on pût faire main-basse sur eux tous, et en purger une bonne fois le royaume.”—Bayle’s Dictionary, art. “Rose.”