History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 36

[Footnote 543: Pasquier, an impartial writer, but somewhat given to panegyric, paints a very flattering portrait of Guise, in a letter written after the death of the duke: "Il fut seigneur fort debonnaire, bien emparle tant en particulier qu'en public, vaillant et magnanime, prompt a la main," etc. uvres choisies, ii. 258.]

[Footnote 544: "Le due de Guyse, grand chef de guerre, et capitaine capable de servir sa patrie, si l'ambition de son frere ne l'eust prevenu et empoisonne. Aussi a-il dict plusieurs fois de luy: Cest homme enfin nous perdra." De l'Aubespine, Hist. part., iii. 286.]

[Footnote 545: "Di dir poche volte il vero. Poco veredico, di natura duplice ed avara, non meno nel suo particolare che nelle cose del re."

Suriano regards the cardinal as without a rival in this particular: "Che di saper dissimulare non ha pari al mondo." Tommaseo, i. 526.]

[Footnote 546: Not to speak of the property he obtained by dispossessing the rightful owners, he received, by favor of Diana, on the death of his uncle, Cardinal John, the benefices the latter had enjoyed, with all his personal wealth. Charles now had 300,000 livres of income; but he never thought of paying off his uncle's enormous debts: "Laissa toutes les debtes d'iceluy, qui estoyent immenses, a ses creanciers, _pour y succeder par droit de bangueroute!_" De l'Aubespine, iii. 281. The papal envoy, Cardinal Prospero di Santa Croce, combines the traits of ambition, avarice, and hypocrisy in his portrait of his colleague in the sacred consistory, and makes little of his learning: "Carolus a Lotharingia ... juvenis _non illiteratus_, ac ingenio versuto et callido, _maxime ambitioni et avaritiae dedito_, quae vitia _religionis ac sanctimoniae simulatione obtegere conabatur_." Prosperi Santacrucii de Civilibus Galliae dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a caustic contemporary pamphlet--_Le livre des marchands_ (1565)--should describe him as "ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent egalles entre deux fers." (Ed. Pantheon, p. 423.)]

[Footnote 547: "Non credo fosse in quel regno desiderata alcuna cosa piu che la sua morte." Relaz. di Gio. Michiel, Tommaseo, i. 440. I have united the accounts of two amba.s.sadors, Soranzo and Michiel, the first belonging to 1558, the other to 1561. Both are contained in Tommaseo's edit. of the Relations Venitiens.]

[Footnote 548: Werke, viii. 141.]

[Footnote 549: Brantome, uvres (Ed. of Fr. Hist. Soc.), iv. 275, etc.]

[Footnote 550: "Et seroit a desirer que ceste femme et le cardinal n'eussent jamais este; car ces deux seuls out este les flamesches de nos malheurs." De l'Aubespine, iii. 286. The reader will, after this, make little account of the extravagant panegyric by the Father Alby (inserted by Migne in his Dict. des Card., s. v. Lorraine); yet he may be amused at the precise contradiction between the estimate of the cardinal's political services made by this ecclesiastic and that of the practical statesman given above. He seems to the priest born for the good of others: "ayant pour cela merite de la posterite toutes les louanges d'un homme ne pour le bien des autres, et le t.i.tre meme de cardinal de France, qui lui fut donne par quelques ecrivains de son temps." This blundering eulogist makes him to have been a.s.signed by Francis I. as counsellor of his son.]

[Footnote 551: Brantome, Hommes ill.u.s.tres (uvres, viii. 63).]

[Footnote 552: Mem. de Vieilleville, i. 179.]

[Footnote 553: La Planche, 205.]

[Footnote 554: Mem. de Vieilleville, i. 186-189.]

[Footnote 555: "Pour du tout s'a.s.seurer, ils se jetterent du commencement au party de ceste femme; et specialement le cardinal, _qui estoit des plus parfaicts en l'art de courtiser_. Comme tel _il se gehenna_ tellement par l'es.p.a.ce de pres de deux ans, que ne tenant point de table pour sa personne, _il disnoit a la table de Madame_; ainsi estoit-elle appellee par la Royne mesme." L'Aubespine, Hist.

particuliere, iii. 281.]

[Footnote 556: "Ne pouvant doresenavant estre aultre mon interest que le vostre. De quoy Dieu soit loue," etc. Letter of the Card. of Lorraine, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., ix. (1860), 216.]

[Footnote 557: De Thou, i. 496. Henry was a _religious_ prince also, according to Dandolo. The amba.s.sador's standard, however, was not a very severe one: "Sua maesta si dimostra religiosa, _non cavalca la domenica, almen la mattina_." Relaz. Venete, ii. 173.]

[Footnote 558: Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i, 43, 44.]

[Footnote 559: Une chambre speciale composee de "dix ou douze conseillers des plus scavants et des plus zeles, pour connoistre du faict d'heresie, sans qu'elle pust vacquer a d'autres affaires." Reg.

secr., 17 avril, 1545; Floquet, Hist. du. parl. de Normandie, ii. 241.]

[Footnote 560: In the preamble to the edict of Paris issued two years later, Henry rehea.r.s.es the ordinance and its motives: "Et pour ceste cause des nostre nouvel avenement a la couronne, voulans a l'exemple et imitation de feu nostredit seigneur et pere, travailler et prester la main a purger et nettoier nostre royaume d'une telle peste, nous aurions pour plus grande et prompte expedition desdites matieres et procez sur le fait desdites heresies, erreurs et fausses doctrines ordonne et estably _une chambre particuliere en nostre parlement a Paris, pour seulement vaquer ausdites expeditions, sans se divertir a autres actes_." Isambert, xiii. 136. Cf. Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.]

[Footnote 561: Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.]

[Footnote 562: Edict of Fontainebleau, Dec. 11, 1547. Isambert, xiii.

37, 38.]

[Footnote 563: A singular ill.u.s.tration of this device is given in a letter recently discovered. In 1542 a printer, to secure for his edition of the Protestant liturgy and psalter a more ready entrance into Roman Catholic cities, added the whimsical imprint: "_Printed in Rome, with privilege of the Pope_"!--Naturally enough, this very circ.u.mstance aroused suspicion at the gates of Metz, and 600 copies were stopped. The ultimate fate of the books is unknown. Letter of Peter Alexander, May 25, 1542, Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Calvini Opera, vi. p. xv. A single copy of this _Roman_ edition has recently come to light. It proves to be the earliest edition thus far discovered of Calvin's Strasbourg Liturgy, the prototype of his Geneva Liturgy. O. Douen, Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot (Paris, 1878), i. 334-339; and farther on in note at the close of this chapter.]

[Footnote 564: Crespin, fols. 152-155. De Thou (i. 446) mistakes the date of the sentence of the Parliament of Paris, March 3, 1548 (1547 Old Style), for that of the execution. The awkward old French practice of making the year begin with _Easter_, instead of January 1st, has in this, as in many other instances, led to great confusion, even in the minds of those who were perfectly familiar with the custom. The "Histoire ecclesiastique," for instance, places the execution of Brugiere in the reign of Francis I., whereas it belongs to the first year of the reign of his son. So does White, Ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew, p. 19.]

[Footnote 565: Crespin, fol. 156.]

[Footnote 566: Inedited letter of Constable Montmorency of July 8, 1549, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., ix. (1860) 124, 125.

"Voila," says this doc.u.ment, "le debvoir ou ledit seigneur s'est mis pour continuer la possession de ce nom et t.i.tre de Tres-Chrestien."]

[Footnote 567: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 50, 51. Crespin, fol.

157, etc. The registers of parliament can spare for the auto-da-fe but a few lines at the conclusion of a lengthy description of the magnificent procession, and inaccurately designate the locality: "Cette apresdinee fut faicte execution d'aucuns cond.a.m.nez au feu pour crime d'heresie, tant au parvis N. D. que en la place devant Ste. Catherine du Val des Escolliers." Reg. of Parl., July 4, 1549 (Felibien, Preuves, iv. 745, 746).]

[Footnote 568: Anne Audeberte and Louis de Marsac. Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 52, 58; Crespin, fols. 156, 227-234.]

[Footnote 569: Isambert, Recueil gen. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 134-138.

Of course the provision giving to church courts the right of arrest, so opposed to the spirit of the "Gallican Liberties," displeased parliament, which duly remonstrated (Preuves des libertez de l'eg.

gall., iii. 171), but was compelled to register the law, with conditions forbidding the exaction of pecuniary fines, and the sentence of perpetual imprisonment.]

[Footnote 570: De Thou, i. 167. Hist. eccles., i. 53.]

[Footnote 571: De Thou, _ubi supra_. Mezeray well remarks that the Protestants recognized the fact then, as they always have done since, in similar circ.u.mstances, that there is no more disastrous time for them than when the court of France has a misunderstanding with that of Rome.

Abrege chronologique, iv. 664.]

[Footnote 572: "A right of appeal to the supreme courts has. .h.i.therto been, and still is, granted to persons guilty of poisoning, of forgery, and of robbery; yet this is denied to Christians; they are condemned by the ordinary judges to be dragged straight to the flames, without any liberty of appeal.... All are commanded, with more than usual earnestness, to adore the breaden G.o.d on bended knee. All parish priests are commanded to read the Sorbonne Articles every Sabbath for the benefit of the people, that a solemn abnegation of Christ may thus resound throughout the land.... Geneva is alluded to more than ten times in the edict, and always with a striking mark of reproach." Calvin's Letters (Bonnet), Eng. tr., iii. 319, 320. I cannot agree with Soldan (Geschichte des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 228) in the statement that the Edict of Chateaubriand left the jurisdiction essentially as fixed by the ordinance of Nov. 19, 1549. For the edict does not, as he a.s.serts, permit "the civil judges--presidial judges as well as parliaments--equally with the spiritual, to commence every process." It deprives the ecclesiastical judge, 1st, of the right which the ordinance of 1549 had conferred, of _initiating_ any process where scandal, sedition, etc., were joined to simple heresy, and these cases--under the interpretation of the law--const.i.tuted a large proportion of cases; 2d, of the right of deciding with the secular judges in these last-named cases; and 3d, of the power of arrest. De Thou, himself a president of parliament (ii. 375, liv. xvi.), therefore styles it "un edit, par lequel le Roi se reservoit une entiere connoissance du Lutheranisme, et l'attribuoit a ses juges, sans aucune exception, a moins que l'heresie dont il s'agissoit ne demandat quelque eclairciss.e.m.e.nt, ou que les coupables ne fussent dans les ordres sacres."]

[Footnote 573: Milton's Areopagitica. This was the view somewhat bitterly expressed in one of the poems of the "Satyres Chrestiennes de la cuisine Papale " (Geneva, 1560; reprinted 1857), addressed "aux Rostisseurs," p. 130:

"Je cognoy, Cagots, que mes liures Vous sont fascheus.e.m.e.nt nouueaux.

Bruslez, si en serez deliures Pour en servir de naueaux.

Mais scavez-vous que c'est, gros veaux, _Fuyez le feu qui s'en fera: Car la fumee en vos cerueauz Seulmient vous estouffera_."

[Footnote 574: Recueil gen. des anc. lois fr., xiii. 189-208.]

[Footnote 575: Hist. eccles., i. 59.]

[Footnote 576: Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Lausanne, May 10, 1552 (Baum, Thedor Beza, i. 423): "Et tamen vix credas quam multi sese libenter his periculis objiciant ut aedificent Ecclesiam Dei."]

[Footnote 577: Beza to Bullinger, Oct. 28, 1551, Baum, i. 417: "Tantum abest ut Evangelii amplificationem ea res (cruentissimum regis edictum) impediat ut contra nihil aeque prodesse sentiamus ad oves Christi undique dispersas in unum veluti gregem cogendas. Id testari vel una Geneva satis potest, in quam hodie certatim ex omnibus et Galliae et Italiae regionibus tot exules confluunt, ut tantae mult.i.tudini vix nunc sufficiat."]

[Footnote 578: De Thou, ii. 181.]

[Footnote 579: Memoires de Vieilleville (written by his secretary, Vincent Carloix), ed. Pet.i.tot, i. 299-301. This incident belongs to the year 1549.]

[Footnote 580: Histoire eccles., i. 54-60.]

[Footnote 581: Soldan is scarcely correct (Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i. 235) in representing them to have _completed_ their course of study; "alii diutius quam alii," are the words of Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum, fol. 185.]

[Footnote 582: In fact, there seem to have been two "_officials_" at Lyons--the ordinary "_official_" so-called, or "_official buatier_" as he is styled in the narrative of ecrivain (Baum, i. 392), and the "_official de la primace_," _i. e._, of the Archbishop, as Primate of France (Ibid., i. 388).]

[Footnote 583: Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 176.]

[Footnote 584: See a letter of Calvin to the prisoners, in Bonnet, Lettres franc. de Calvin, i. 340.]