The Age of the Reformation Part 15

[1] Remy Belleau: _La Reconnue_, act 4, scene 2.

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Charles, Duke of Bourbon, Constable of France, d. 1527 | | +-------------------------+-----+------------------+ | | | Anthony, Duke of Vendome Charles, Cardinal Louis, Prince ==Joan d'Albret, Queen of of Bourbon of Conde | Navarre, d. 1562 | | _Henry IV_ _1589-1610_ ==(1)Margaret of France ==(2)Mary de' Medici

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Claude, Duke of Guise, d. 1527 | | +------------------------+--+------------+ | | | | | | Francis, Duke of Guise Charles, Cardinal Mary==James V d. 1563 of Lorraine | of Scotland | | | Mary, Queen | of Scots | +-----------------------+--------------------+ | | | Henry, Duke of Guise Charles, Duke of Louis, Cardinal of d. 1588 Mayenne Guise, d. 1588

[Transcriber's note: "d." has been used here as a subst.i.tute for the "dagger" symbol (Unicode U+2020) that signifies the person's year of death.]

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SECTION 3. THE WARS OF RELIGION. 1559-1598

[Sidenote: Francis II, 1559-60]

Henry II was followed by three of his sons in succession, each of them, in different degrees and ways, a weakling. The first of them was Francis II, a delicate lad of fifteen, who suffered from adenoids.

Child as he was he had already been married for more than a year to Mary Stuart, a daughter of James V of Scotland and a niece of Francis of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. As she was the one pa.s.sion of the morose and feeble king, who, being legally of age was able to choose his own ministers, the government of the realm fell into the strong hands of "the false brood of Lorraine." Fearing and hating these men above all others the Huguenots turned to the Bourbons for protection, but the king of Navarre was too weak a character to afford them much help. Finding in the press their best weapon the Protestants produced a flood of pamphlets attacking the Cardinal of Lorraine as "the tiger of France."

A more definite plan to rid the country of the hated tyranny was that known as the Conspiracy of Amboise. G.o.dfrey de Barry, Sieur de la Renaudie, pledged several hundred Protestants to go in a body to present a pet.i.tion to the king at Blois. How much further their intentions went is not known, and perhaps was not definitely formulated by themselves. The Venetian amba.s.sador spoke in a contemporary dispatch of a plot to kill the cardinal and also the king if he would not a.s.sent to their counsels, and said that the conspirators relied, to justify this course, on the {211} declaration of Calvin that it was lawful to slay those who hindered the preaching of the gospel. Hearing of the conspiracy, Guise and his brother were ready. They transferred the court from Blois to Amboise, by which move they upset the plans of the pet.i.tioners and also put the king into a more defensible castle.

Soldiers, a.s.sembled for the occasion, met the Huguenots as they advanced in a body towards Amboise, [Sidenote: The tumult of Amboise, March 1560] shot down La Renaudie and some others on the spot and arrested the remaining twelve hundred, to be kept for subsequent trial and execution. The suspicion that fastened on the prince of Conde, a brother of the king of Navarre, was given some color by his frank avowal of sympathy with the conspirators. Though the Guises pressed their advantage to the utmost in forbidding all future a.s.semblies of heretics, the tumult of Amboise was vaguely felt, in the sultry atmosphere of pent-up pa.s.sions, to be the avant-courier of a terrific storm.

The early death of the sickly king left the throne to his brother Charles IX, a boy of nine. [Sidenote: Charles IX, 1560-74] As he was a minor, the regency fell to his mother, Catharine de' Medici, who for almost thirty years was the real ruler of France. [Sidenote: Policy of Catharine de' Medici] Notwithstanding what Brantome calls "ung embonpoint tres-riche," she was active of body and mind. Her large correspondence partly reveals the secrets of her power: much tact and infinite pains to keep in touch with as many people and as many details of business as possible. Her want of beauty was supplied by gracious manners and an elegant taste in art. As a connoisseur and an indefatigable collector she gratified her love of the magnificent not only by beautiful palaces and gorgeous clothes, but in having a store of pictures, statues, tapestries, furniture, porcelain, silver, books, and ma.n.u.scripts.

A "politique" to her fingertips, Catharine had neither sympathy nor patience with the fanatics who {212} would put their religion above peace and prosperity. Surrounded by men as fierce as lions, she showed no little of the skill and intrepidity of the tamer in keeping them, for a time, from each others' throats. Soon after Charles ascended the throne, she was almost hustled into domestic and foreign war by the offer of Philip II of Spain to help her Catholic subjects against the Huguenots without her leave. She knew if that were done that, as she scrawled in her own peculiar French, "le Roy mon fils nave jeames lantyere aubeysance," [1] and she was determined "que personne ne pent nous brouller en lamitie en la quele je desire que set deus Royaumes demeurent pendant mauye." [2] Through her goggle eyes she saw clearly where lay the path that she must follow. "I am resolved," she wrote, "to seek by all possible means to preserve the authority of the king my son in all things, and at the same time to keep the people in peace, unity and concord, without giving them occasion to stir or to change anything." Fundamentally, this was the same policy as that of Henry IV. That she failed where he succeeded is not due entirely to the difference in ability. In 1560 neither party was prepared to yield or to tolerate the other without a trial of strength, whereas a generation later many members of both parties were sick of war.

[Sidenote: December 13, 1560]

Just as Francis was dying, the States General met at Orleans. This body was divided into three houses, or estates, that of the clergy, that of the n.o.bles, and that of the commons. The latter was so democratically chosen that even the peasants voted. Whether they had voted in 1484 is not known, but it is certain that they did so in 1560, and that it was in the interests of the crown to let them vote is shown by the increase in {213} the number of royal officers among the deputies of the third estate. The peasants still regarded the king as their natural protector against the oppression of the n.o.bles.

The Estates were opened by Catharine's minister, Michael de L'Hopital.

Fully sympathizing with her policy of conciliation, he addressed the Estates as follows: [Sidenote: February 24, 1561] "Let us abandon those diabolic words, names of parties, factions and seditions:--Lutherans, Huguenots, Papists; let us not change the name of Christians."

Accordingly, an edict was pa.s.sed granting an amnesty to the Huguenots, nominally for the purpose of allowing them to return to the Catholic church, but practically interpreted without reference to this proviso.

But the government found it easier to pa.s.s edicts than to restrain the zealots of both parties. The Protestants continued to smash images; the Catholics to mob the Protestants. Paris became, in the words of Beza, "the city most b.l.o.o.d.y and murderous among all in the world."

Under the combined effects of legal toleration and mob persecution the Huguenots grew mightily in numbers and power. Their natural leader, the King of Navarre, indeed failed them, for he changed his faith several times, his real cult, as Calvin remarked, being that of Venus.

His wife, Joan d'Albret, however, became an ardent Calvinist.

At this point the government proposed a means of conciliation that had been tried by Charles V in Germany and had there failed. The leading theologians of both confessions were summoned to a colloquy at Poissy.

[Sidenote: Colloquy of Poissy, August, 1561] Most of the German divines invited were prevented by politics from coming, but the noted Italian Protestant Peter Martyr Vermigli and Theodore Beza of Geneva were present. The debate turned on the usual points at issue, and was of course indecisive, {214} though the Huguenots did not hesitate to proclaim their own victory.

[Sidenote: January, 1562]

A fresh edict of toleration had hardly been issued when civil war was precipitated by a horrible crime. Some armed retainers of the Duke of Guise, coming upon a Huguenot congregation at Va.s.sy in Champagne, [Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of Va.s.sy, March 1, 1562] attacked them and murdered three hundred. A wild cry of fury rose from all the Calvinists; throughout the whole land there were riots. At Toulouse, for example, fighting in the streets lasted four days and four hundred persons perished. It was one of the worst years in the history of France. A veritable reign of terror prevailed everywhere, and while the crops were destroyed famine stalked throughout the land. Bands of robbers and ravishers, under the names of Christian parties but savages at heart, put the whole people to ransom and to sack. Indeed, the Wars of Religion were like h.e.l.l; the tongue can describe them better than the imagination can conceive them. The whole sweet and pleasant land of France, from the Burgundian to the Spanish frontier, was widowed and desolated, her pride humbled by her own sons and her Golden Lilies trampled in the b.l.o.o.d.y mire. Foreign levy was called in to supply strength to fratricidal arms. The Protestants, headed by Conde and Coligny, raised an army and started negotiations with England. The Catholics, however, had the best of the fighting. They captured Rouen, defended by English troops, and, under Guise, defeated the Huguenots under Coligny at Dreux. [Sidenote: December 19, 1562]

[Sidenote: February 18, 1563]

Two months later, Francis of Guise was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a Protestant near Orleans. Coligny was accused of inciting the crime, which he denied, though he confessed that he was glad of it. [Sidenote: Edict of Amboise March 19, 1563] The immediate beneficiary of the death of the duke was not the Huguenot, {215} however, so much as Catharine de'

Medici. Continuing to put into practise her policy of tolerance she issued an edict granting liberty of conscience to all and liberty of wors.h.i.+p under certain restrictions. Great n.o.bles were allowed to hold meetings for divine service according to the reformed manner in their own houses, and one village in each bailiwick was allowed to have a Protestant chapel.

How consistently secular was Catharine's policy became apparent at this time when she refused to publish the decrees of the Council of Trent, fearing that they might infringe on the liberties of the Gallican church. In this she had the full support of most French Catholics.

She continued to work for religious peace. One of her methods was characteristic of her and of the time. She selected "a flying squadron" of twenty-four beautiful maids of honor of high rank and low principles to help her seduce the refractory n.o.bles on both sides. In many cases she was successful. Conde, in love with one--or possibly with several--of these sirens, forgot everything else, his wife, his party, his religion. His death in 1569 threw the leaders.h.i.+p of the Huguenots into the steadier and stronger grasp of Coligny.

But such means of dealing with a profoundly dangerous crisis were of course but the most wretched palliatives. The Catholic bigots would permit no dallying with the heretics. In 1567 they were strong enough to secure the disgrace of L'Hopital and in the following year to extort a royal edict unconditionally forbidding the exercise of the reformed cult. The Huguenots again rebelled and in 1569 suffered two severe defeats [Sidenote: Huguenots defeated] at Jarnac and at Moncontour.

The Catholics were jubilant, fully believing, as Sully says, that at last the Protestants would have to submit. But nothing is more remarkable than the apparently slight effect of military success or failure on the {216} strength and numbers of the two faiths. "We had beaten our enemies over and over again," cried the Catholic soldier Montluc in a rage, "we were winning by force of arms but they triumphed by means of their diabolical writings."

The Huguenots, however, did not rely entirely on the pen. Their stronghold was no longer in the north but was now in the south and west. The reason for this may be partly found in the preparation of the soil for their seed by the medieval heresies, but still more in the strong particularistic spirit of that region. The ancient provinces of Poitou and Guienne, Gascony and Languedoc, were almost as conscious of their southern and Provencal culture as they were of their French citizens.h.i.+p. The strength of the centralizing tendencies lay north of the Loire; in the south local privileges were more esteemed and more insisted upon. While Protestantism was persecuted by the government at Paris it was often protected by cities of the south. [Sidenote: La Roch.e.l.le] The most noteworthy of these was La Roch.e.l.le on the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux. Though coming late to the support of the Reformation, its conversion was thorough and lasting. To protect the new religion it successfully a.s.serted its munic.i.p.al freedom almost to the point of independence. Like the Dutch Beggars of the Sea its armed privateers preyed upon the commerce of Catholic powers, a mode of warfare from which the city derived immense booty.

The Huguenots tried but failed to get foreign allies. Neither England nor Germany sent them any help. [Sidenote: Battle of Mons, July 17, 1572] Their policy of supporting the revolt of the Low Countries against Spain turned out disastrously for themselves when the French under Coligny were defeated at Mons by the troops of Philip.

The Catholics now believed the time ripe for a decisive blow. Under the stimulus of the Jesuits they {217} had for a short time been conducting an offensive and effective propaganda. Leagues were formed to combat the organizations of the Huguenots, armed "Brotherhoods of the Holy Spirit" as they were called. The chief obstacle in their path seemed to be a small group of powerful n.o.bles headed by Coligny.

Catharine and the Guises resolved to cut away this obstacle with the a.s.sa.s.sin's knife. Charles, who was personally on good terms with Coligny, hesitated, but he was too weak a youth to hold out long.

There seems to be good reason to believe that all the queen dowager and her advisers contemplated was the murder of a few leaders and that they did not foresee one of the most extensive ma.s.sacres in history.

Her first attempt to have Coligny a.s.sa.s.sinated [Sidenote: August 22, 1572] aroused the anger of the Huguenot leaders and made them more dangerous than before. A better laid and more comprehensive plan was therefore carried out on the eve of St. Bartholomew's day. [Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, August 24, to October 3] Early in the evening of August 23, Henry of Guise, a son of Duke Francis, and Coligny's bitterest personal enemy, went with armed men to the house of the admiral and murdered him. From thence they proceeded to the houses of other prominent Huguenots to slay them in the same manner. News of the man-hunt spread through the city with instant rapidity, the mob rose and ma.s.sacred all the Huguenots they could find as well as a number of foreigners, princ.i.p.ally Germans and Flemings. De Thou says that two thousand were slain in Paris before noon of August 24. A general pillage followed.

The king hesitated to a.s.sume responsibility for so serious a tumult.

His letters of August 24 to various governors of provinces and to amba.s.sadors spoke only of a fray between Guise and Coligny, and stated that he wished to preserve order. But with these very {218} letters he sent messengers to all quarters with verbal orders to kill all the leading Protestants. On August 27 he again wrote of it as "a great and lamentable sedition" originating in the desire of Guise to revenge his father on Coligny. The king said that the fury of the populace was such that he was unable to bring the remedy he wished, and he again issued directions for the preservation of order. But at the same time he declared that the Guises had acted at his command to punish those who had conspired against him and against the old religion. In fact, he gave out a rapid series of contradictory accounts and orders, and in the meantime, from August 25 to October 3 terrible series of ma.s.sacres took place in almost all the provinces. [Sidenote: Other ma.s.sacres]

Two hundred Huguenots perished at Meaux, from 500 to 1000 at Orleans, a much larger number at Lyons. It is difficult to estimate the total number of victims. Sully, who narrowly escaped, says that 70,000 were slain. Hotman, another contemporary, says 50,000. Knowing how much figures are apt to be exaggerated even by judicious men, we must a.s.sume that this number is too large. On the other hand the lowest estimate given by modern Catholic investigators, 5000, is certainly too small.

Probably between 10,000 and 20,000 is correct. Those who fell were the flower of the party.

Whatever may have been the precise degree of guilt of the French rulers, which in any case was very grave, they took no pains to conceal their exultation over an event that had at last, as they believed, ground their enemies to powder. In jubilant tone Catharine wrote to her son-in-law, Philip of Spain, that G.o.d had given her son the king of France the means "of wiping out those of his subjects who were rebellious to G.o.d and to himself." Philip sent his hearty congratulations and heard a Te Deum sung. The pope struck a medal {219} with a picture of an avenging angel and the legend, "Ugonotorum strages," and ordered an annual Te Deum which was, in fact, celebrated for a long time. But on the other hand a cry of horror arose from Germany and England. Elizabeth received the French amba.s.sador dressed in mourning and declared to him that "the deed had been too b.l.o.o.d.y."

Though the triumph of the Catholics was loudly shouted, it was not as complete as they hoped. The Huguenots seemed cowed for a moment, but nothing is more remarkable than the constancy of the people.

Recantations were extremely few. The Reformed pastors, nourished on the Old Testament, saw in the affliction that had befallen them nothing but the means of proving the faithful. Preparations for resistance were made at once in the princ.i.p.al cities of the south. [Sidenote: Siege of La Roch.e.l.le] La Roch.e.l.le, besieged by the royal troops, evinced a heroism worthy of the cause. While the men repulsed the furious a.s.saults of the enemy the women built up the walls that crumbled under the powerful fire of the artillery. A faction of citizens who demanded surrender was sternly suppressed and the city held out until relief came from an unhoped quarter. The king's brother, Henry Duke of Anjou, was elected to the throne of Poland on condition that he would allow liberty of conscience to Polish Protestants. In order to appear consistent the French government therefore stopped for the moment the persecution of the Huguenots. The siege of La Roch.e.l.le was abandoned and a treaty made allowing liberty of wors.h.i.+p in that city, in Nimes and Montauban and in the houses of some of the great n.o.bles.

In less than two years after the appalling ma.s.sacre the Protestants were again strong and active. A chant of victory sounded from their dauntless ranks. More than ever before they became republican in principle. {220} Their pamphleteers, among them Hotman, fiercely attacked the government of Catharine, and a.s.serted their rights.

Charles was a consumptive. The hemorrhages characteristic of his disease reminded him of the torrents of blood that he had caused to flow from his country. Broken in body and haunted by superst.i.tious terrors the wretched man died on May 30, 1574. [Sidenote: Henry III, 1547-89] He was succeeded by his brother, Henry III, recently elected king of Poland, a man of good parts, interested in culture and in study, a natural orator, not dest.i.tute of intelligence. His mother's pet and spoiled child, brought up among the girls of the "flying squadron," he was in a continual state of nervous and sensual t.i.tillation that made him avid of excitement and yet unable to endure it. A thunderstorm drove him to hide in the cellar and to tears. He was at times overcome by fear of death and h.e.l.l, and at times had crises of religious fervour. But his life was a perpetual debauch, ever seeking new forms of pleasure in strange ways. He would walk the streets at night accompanied by gay young rufflers in search of adventures. He had a pa.s.sion for some handsome young men, commonly called "the darlings," whom he kept about him dressed as women.

His reign meant a new lease of power to his mother, who wors.h.i.+pped him and to whom he willingly left the arduous business of government. By this time she was bitterly hated by the Huguenots, who paid their compliments to her in a pamphlet ent.i.tled _A wonderful Discourse on the Life, Deeds and Debauchery of Catharine de' Medici_, perhaps written in part by the scholar Henry Estienne. She was accused not only of crimes of which she was really guilty, like the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, but of having murdered {221} the dauphin Francis, her husband's elder brother, and others who had died natural deaths, and of having systematically depraved her children in order to keep the reins of authority in her own hands.

Frightened by the odium in which his mother was held, Henry III thought it wise to disavow all part or lot in St. Bartholomew and to concede to the Huguenots liberty of wors.h.i.+p everywhere save in Paris and in whatever place the court might be for the moment.

So difficult was the position of the king that by this attempt to conciliate his enemies he only alienated his friends. The bigoted Catholics, finding the crown impotent, began to take energetic measures to help themselves. In 1576 they formed a League to secure the benefit of a.s.sociation. [Sidenote: The League] Henry Duke of Guise drew up the declaration that formed the const.i.tuent act of the League. It proposed "to establish the law of G.o.d in its entirety, to reinstate and maintain divine service according to the form and manner of the holy, Catholic and apostolic church," and also "to restore to the provinces and estates of this kingdom the rights, privileges, franchises, and ancient liberties such as they were in the time of King Clovis, the first Christian king." This last clause is highly significant as showing how the Catholics had now adopted the tactics of the Huguenots in appealing from the central government to the provincial privileges.

It is exactly the same issue as that of Federalism versus States'

Rights in American history; the party in power emphasizes the national authority, while the smaller divisions furnish a refuge for the minority.

The const.i.tuency of the League rapidly became large. The declaration of Guise was circulated throughout the country something like a monster pet.i.tion, and those who wished bound themselves to support it. The {222} power of this a.s.sociation of Catholics among n.o.bles and people soon made it so formidable that Henry III reversed his former policy, recognized the League and declared himself its head.

[Sidenote: Estates General of Blois]

The elections for the States General held at Blois in 1576 proved highly favorable to the League. The chief reason for their overwhelming success was the abstention of the Protestants from voting.

In continental Europe it has always been and is now common for minorities to refuse to vote, the idea being that this refusal is in itself a protest more effective than a definite minority vote would be.