History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 47

[Sidenote: The progress of letters]

[Sidenote: and of intelligence.]

It may be worth while to pause here, and inquire into some of the causes of this rapid spread of the doctrines of the Reformation after the long period of comparative stagnation preceding. One of these was undoubtedly the astonis.h.i.+ng progress of letters in France during the last forty years. From being neglected and rough, the French language, during the first half of the sixteenth century, became the most polite of the tongues spoken in Western Europe--thanks to a series of eminent prose writers and poets who graced the royal court. The generation reaching manhood in the latter years of the reign of Henry the Second were far better educated than the contemporaries of Francis the First. The public mind, through the elevating tendencies of schools fostered by royal bounty, was to a considerable degree emanc.i.p.ated from the thraldom of superst.i.tion. It repudiated the silly romanese, pa.s.sing for the lives of the saints, with which the public had formerly been satisfied. It scrutinized minutely every pretended miracle of the papal churches and convents, and exposed the trickery by which a corrupt clergy sought to maintain itself in popular esteem. Thus the growing intelligence and widening information of the people prepared them to appreciate the merits of the great doctrinal controversy now occupying the attention of enlightened minds. Interest in the discussion of the most important themes that can occupy the human contemplation was both stimulated and gratified by a constant influx of religious works from the teeming presses of Strasbourg, Basle, Lausanne, Neufchatel, and especially Geneva. And the verdict of the great majority of readers and thinkers was favorable to the Swiss and German controversialists.

[Sidenote: Calvin's Inst.i.tutes.]

[Sidenote: Marot and Beza's Psalms.]

Next to the Bible, translated originally by Oliveta.n.u.s, and in its successive editions rendered more conformable to the Hebrew and Greek texts, the "Christian Inst.i.tutes" exerted the most powerful influence.

The close logic of Calvin's treatises, speaking in a style clear, concise and nervous, and touching a chord of sympathy in each French reader, made its deep impress upon the intellect and heart, while captivating the ear. Calvin's commentaries on the sacred volume rendered its pages luminous and familiar. Other works exerted an influence scarcely inferior. The "Actions and Monuments" of the martyrs, by Jean Crespin, printer and scholar, not only perpetuated the memory of the witnesses for the truth, but stimulated others to copy their fidelity.

Marot and Beza's metrical versions of the Psalms, wafted into popularity, even among those who at first little sympathized with the piety of the words, by the novelty and beauty of the music to which they were sung, were powerful auxiliaries to the arguments of the theologian.

They entered the house of the peasant and invested its homely scenes with a calm derived from the contemplation of the bliss of a heaven where the fleeting distinctions of the present shall melt away. They nerved the humble artisan to patience and to the cheerful endurance of obloquy and reproach. They attracted to the gathering of persecuted reformers in the by-street, in the retired barn, or on the open heath or mountain side, the youth who preferred their melody and intelligible words to the jargon of a service conducted in a tongue understood only by the learned. In the royal court, or rising in loud chorus from a thousand voices on the crowded _Pre-aux-Clercs_, they were winged messengers of the truth, where no other messengers could have found utterance with impunity.

[Sidenote: Morals and martyrdom.]

The blameless purity of life of the men and women whom, for religion's sake, the officers of the law put to death with every species of indignity and with inhuman cruelty, when contrasted with the flagrant corruption of the clergy and the shameless dissoluteness of the court, openly fostered for their own base ends by cardinals themselves accused of every species of immorality and suspected of atheism, deeply affected the minds of the reflecting. One Anne Du Bourg put to death by a Charles of Lorraine made more converts in a day than all the executioners could burn in a year.

[Sidenote: Character of the ministers from Geneva.]

But, if the rapid spread of Protestant doctrines at this precise date is due to any one cause more than to another, that cause may probably be found in the character and numbers of the religious teachers. Converts from the Papal Church, princ.i.p.ally priests and monks, were the first apostles of the Reformation. Few of them had received systematic training of any kind, none had a thorough acquaintance with biblical learning. Many embraced the truth only in part; some professed it from improper motives. The Lenten preachers whose leaning towards "Lutheranism" was sufficiently marked to attract the hatred of the Sorbonne, were generally orators, more solicitous of popularity than jealous for the truth--fickle and inconstant men whose apostasy inflicted deep wounds upon the cause with which they had been identified, and more than neutralized all the good done by their previous exertions. But now a brotherhood of theologians took their place, not less zealous for the faith than disciplined in intellect.

Geneva[856] was the nursery from which a vigorous stock was transplanted to French soil. The theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the sh.o.r.es of Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost inevitable death stared them in the face. But they entered it intelligently and resolutely, with the training of mind and of soul which an athlete might receive from such instructors, and their prayerful, trustful and unselfish endeavor met an ample recompense.[857]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots of Valence]

[Sidenote: seize the church of the Franciscans.]

The course of events in many cities of Southern France is ill.u.s.trated by the occurrences at Valence, which the most authentic and trustworthy historian of this reign has described at length. This episcopal city, situated on the Rhone, about midway between Lyons and Avignon, had for some time contained a small community of Huguenots. When, in order to avoid persecution, their minister, who had become known to their enemies, was replaced by another, a period of unexampled growth began.

The private houses in which the Protestants met were too small to contain the wors.h.i.+ppers. They now adjourned to the large schools, but at first held their services by night. Soon their courage grew with the advent of a second minister and with large accessions to their ranks.

The younger and more impetuous part of the Protestants, disregarding the prudent counsels of their pastors and elders, ventured upon the bold step of seizing upon the Church of the Franciscans, and caused the Gospel to be openly preached from its pulpit. The people a.s.sembled, summoned by the ringing of the bell; and it was not long before the reformed doctrines were relished and embraced by great crowds. A goodly number of armed gentlemen simultaneously took possession of the adjoining cloisters, and protected the Protestant rites. The co-religionists of Montelimart and Romans, considerable towns not far distant, emboldened by the example of Valence, resorted to public preaching in the churches or within their precincts.[858]

[Sidenote: A public a.s.sembly of citizens.]

[Sidenote: An impressive scene.]

[Sidenote: The public morals.]

On receiving the intelligence of the sudden outbreak of Protestant zeal in his diocese, the Bishop of Valence--himself at one time possibly half-inclined to become a convert--despatched thither the Seneschal of Valentinois with the royal Edict of Forgiveness published at Amboise for all who had taken arms and conspired against the king. The citizens were summoned to a public a.s.sembly, in which the magistrates, the consuls, the clergy, and the chief Huguenots were conspicuous. After reading and explaining the terms of the royal clemency, the seneschal turned to the Protestants, who stood by themselves, and demanded whether they intended to avail themselves of its protection. Mirabel, their chief spokesman, replied that it was the custom of the reformed churches to offer prayer to G.o.d before treating of so important affairs as this, and proffered a request that they be allowed to invoke His presence and blessing.

Permission was granted. A citizen of Valence, who was also a deacon of the Reformed Church, thereupon came forward, and uttered a fervent prayer for the prosperity of the king and his realm, and for the progress of the Gospel. The Protestant gentlemen reverently uncovered their heads and knelt upon the ground, and their Roman Catholic neighbors imitated their example. But it was noticed that the clergy stood unmoved and refused to join in the act of wors.h.i.+p. The prayer being ended, a Huguenot orator delivered the answer of his brethren. It was, that they rejoiced and rendered thanks for the benignity of their young prince; but that they could not avail themselves of the pardon offered. They had never conspired against their king. On the contrary, they professed a religion that enjoined the most dutiful obedience. As for bearing arms, it had only been resorted to by the Huguenots in order that they might protect themselves against the unauthorized insults and violence of private persons. The citizen was followed by a _procureur_, who, for eight years, had kept the criminal records of Valence. He bore public testimony to a wonderful change that had come over the city since the introduction of the preaching of the Gospel. The acts of violence which formerly rendered the streets so dangerous by night that few dared to venture out of their houses, even to visit their neighbors, had almost disappeared. The fearful story of crime which used to confront him every morning had been succeeded by a chronicle of quiet and peace. It would seem that with a change of doctrine had also come a transformation of life. The speaker challenged the other side to gainsay his statements; and when not a voice was heard in contradiction, he administered to the Papists a scathing rebuke for the calumnies which some of them had forged against the Protestants behind their backs. With this triumphant refutation of the charges of disorder, the a.s.sembly broke up.[859]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots of Dauphiny to be exterminated.]

The province of Dauphiny, within whose limits Valence, Romans and Montelimart were comprehended, was a government entrusted to the Duke of Guise. Moved with indignation at finding it become the hotbed of Protestantism, he determined to crush the Huguenots before impunity had given them still greater boldness. The governors of adjacent provinces were ordered to a.s.sist in the pious undertaking. King Francis, in a paroxysm of rage, wrote to Tavannes, acting governor of Burgundy, to take all the men-at-arms under his command and march to the a.s.sistance of Clermart, Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, in cutting to pieces those who had taken up arms under color of religion. They were, he heard, three or four thousand men, and had inst.i.tuted public preaching "after the Geneva fas.h.i.+on," with all other insolent acts conceivable. He begged him to punish them as they deserved, showing no pity or compa.s.sion, since they had refused to take advantage of the forgiveness of past offences which had been sent them. He was to _extirpate_ the evil.[860]

These and other equally brutal instructions were obeyed with alacrity; but their execution was effected rather by treachery than by open force. The Huguenots of Valence were first induced by promises of security to lay aside their arms, then imprisoned and despoiled by a party consisting of the very dregs of the population of Lyons and Vienne. Two of the ministers were put to death[861] in company with three of the princ.i.p.al men, one being the _procureur_ who had given such n.o.ble testimony to the morals of the Protestants. More would have been executed had not the Bishop of Valence been induced to intercede for his episcopal city, and obtain amnesty for its citizens. Romans and Montelimart fared little better than Valence.[862]

[Sidenote: Concourse at Nismes.]

At Nismes, in Languedoc--destined periodically, for the next three centuries, to be the scene of civil dissension arising from religious intolerance--as early as in Holy Week, three Protestant ministers had been preaching in private houses and administering baptism. On Easter Monday a large concourse from the city and the surrounding villages publicly pa.s.sed out into the suburbs--armed, if we may believe the cowardly Vicomte de Joyeuse, with corselets, arquebuses, and pikes--and celebrated the Lord's Supper "after the manner of Geneva." Neither the presidial judges nor the consuls exhibited much disposition to second the efforts of the provincial government in suppressing these manifestations.[863]

[Sidenote: Mouvans in arms in Provence.]

[Sidenote: His message to Guise.]

In Provence the commotion a.s.sumed a more military aspect, in immediate connection with the conspiracy of Amboise. Mouvans, an able leader, after failing in an attempt to gain admission to Aix, long maintained himself in the open country. Keeping up a wonderful degree of discipline in his army, he allowed his soldiers, indeed, to destroy the images in the churches and to melt down the rich reliquaries of gold and silver, but scrupulously required them to place the precious metal in the hands of the local authorities. At length, forced to capitulate to the Comte de Tende, the royal governor, he obtained the promise of security of person and liberty of wors.h.i.+p. New acts of treachery rendered his position unsafe, and he retired to Geneva. It was thence that he returned to the Duke of Guise, who professed to be eager to secure for himself the services of so able a commander, a n.o.ble answer: "So long as I know you to be an enemy of my religion and of the public peace, and to be occupying the place of right belonging to the princes of the blood, you may be a.s.sured you have an enemy in Mouvans, a poor gentleman, but able to bring against you fifty thousand good servants of the King of France, who are ready to endanger life and property in redressing the wrongs you have inflicted on the faithful subjects of his Majesty."[864]

[Sidenote: A popular awakening.]

It was impossible to ignore the fact: France had awakened from the sleep of ages. The doctrines of the Reformation were being embraced by the ma.s.ses. It was impossible to repress the impulse to confess with the mouth[865] what was believed in the heart. At Rouen, the earnest request of the authorities, seconded by the prudent advice of the ministers, might prevail upon the Protestant community still to be content with an unostentatious and almost private wors.h.i.+p, upon promise of connivance on the part of the Parliament of Normandy. But Caen, St. Lo, and Dieppe witnessed great public a.s.semblies,[866] and Central and Southern France copied the example of Normandy. The time for secret gatherings and a timid wors.h.i.+p had gone by. They were no longer in question. "When cities and almost entire provinces had embraced the faith of the reformers," a recent historian has well remarked,[867] "secret a.s.semblies became an impossibility. A whole people cannot shut themselves up in forests and in caverns to invoke their G.o.d. From whom would they hide? From themselves? The very idea is absurd."

[Sidenote: Pamphlets against the usurpers.]

[Sidenote: The queen mother consults La Planche.]

The political ferment was not less active than the religious. The pamphlets and the representations made by the emissaries of the Guises to foreign powers, in which the movement at Amboise was branded as a conspiracy directed against the king and the royal authority, called forth a host of replies vindicating the _political_ Huguenots, and setting their project in its true light, as an effort to overthrow the intolerable usurpation of the Guises. The tyrants were no match for the patriots in the use of the pen; but it fared ill with the author or printer of these libels, when the strenuous efforts made to discover them proved successful.[868] The politic Catharine de' Medici, fearing a new and more dreadful outburst of the popular discontent, renewed her hollow advances to the Protestant churches,[869] held a long consultation with Louis Regnier de la Planche (the eminent historian, whose profoundly philosophical and exact chronicle of this short reign leaves us only disappointed that he confined his masterly investigations to so limited a field) respecting the grounds of the existing dissatisfaction,[870] and despatched Coligny to Normandy for the purpose of finding a cure for the evil.

[Sidenote: Edict of Romorantin, May, 1560.]

[Sidenote: No abatement of rigor.]

The Guises, on the other hand, resolved to meet the difficulties of their situation with boldness. The opposition, so far as it was religious, must be repressed by legislation strictly enforced.

Accordingly, in the month of May, 1560, an edict was published known as the _Edict of Romorantin_, from the place where the court was sojourning, but remarkable for nothing save the misapprehensions that have been entertained respecting its origin and object.[871] It restored exclusive jurisdiction in matters of simple heresy to the clergy, excluding the civil courts from all partic.i.p.ation, save to execute the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge. But it neither lightened nor aggravated the penalties affixed by previous laws. _Death_ was still to be the fate of the convicted heretic, to whom it mattered little whether he were tried by a secular or by a spiritual tribunal, except that the forms of law were more likely to be observed by the former than by the latter. A section directed against the "a.s.semblies"

in which, under color of religion, arms were carried and the public peace threatened, declared those who took part in them to be rebels liable to the penalties of treason.[872]

[Sidenote: Death of Chancellor Olivier.]

A remarkable figure now comes upon the stage of French affairs in the person of Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital. Chancellor Olivier, who had merited universal respect while losing office in consequence of his steadfast resistance to injustice under the previous reign, had forfeited the esteem of the good by his complaisance when restored to office by the Guises at the beginning of the present reign. Overcome with remorse for the cruelties in which he had acquiesced since his reinstatement, he fell sick shortly after the tumult of Amboise. When visited during his last illness by the Cardinal of Lorraine, he coldly turned his back upon him and muttered, "Ah! Cardinal, you have caused us all to be d.a.m.ned."[873] He died not long afterward, and was buried without regret, despised by the patriotic party on account of his unfaithfulness to early convictions, and hated by the Guises for his tardy condemnation of their measures.

[Sidenote: Chancellor Michel de l'Hospital.]

Of L'Hospital, because raised to the vacant charge by the Lorraine influence, little good was originally expected.[874] But the lapse of a few years revealed the incorruptible integrity of his character and the sagacity of his plans.[875] Elevated to the highest judicial post at a critical juncture, he accepted a dignity for which he had little ambition, only that he might the better serve his country. What he could not remedy he resolved to make as endurable as possible. It was not within the power of a single virtuous statesman to allay the storm and quiet the surging waters; but by good-will, perseverance, and nerve, he might steer the s.h.i.+p of state through many a narrow channel and by many a hidden rock. An ardent lover and earnest advocate of toleration, he yet considered it politic to consent to urge the Parliament of Paris, in the king's name, to register the Edict of Romorantin, in accordance with which the system of persecution was for a while to be continued. One of the original conspirators of Amboise, according to the explicit statement of a writer who saw his signature affixed to the secret papers of the confederates,[876] he made no opposition to the article that p.r.o.nounced the penalties of treason upon those who a.s.sembled in arms to celebrate the rites of religious wors.h.i.+p. Yet he dissembled not from timidity, treachery, or ambition, but solely that by unremitting labor he might heal the unhappy dissensions of his country. "_Patience, patience, tout ira bien_," were the words he always had in his mouth for encouragement and consolation.[877]

[Sidenote: Perplexity of the ruling family.]

As the summer advanced the perplexities of the Guises increased. Every day there were new alarms. The English amba.s.sador, not able to conceal his satisfaction at the perplexity of his queen's covert enemies, wrote to Cecil: "If I should discourse particularly unto you what these men have done since my last letters ... you would think me as fond in observing their doings as they mad in variable executing. But you may see what force _fear_ hath that occasioned such variety.... They be in such security, as no man knoweth overnight where the king will lodge.

Tomorrow from all parts they have such news as doth greatly perplex them. Every day new advertis.e.m.e.nts of new stirs, as of late again in Dauphiny, in Anjou, in Provence; and to make up their mouths, the king being in the skirts of Normandy, at Rouen, upon Corpus Christi Day, there was somewhat to do about the solemn procession, so as there was many slain in both parts. But at length the churchmen had the worse, and for an advantage, the order is by the king commanded, that the priests for their outrage shall be grievously punished. What judge you when the Cardinal of Lorraine is constrained to command to punish the clergy, and such as do find fault with others' insolence, contemning the reverent usage to the holy procession!"[878]

[Sidenote: Montbrun in the Comtat Venaissin.]

[Sidenote: Universal commotion.]

New commotions had indeed arisen in the south-east, where Montbrun, a nephew of Cardinal Tournon, the inquisitor-general, had entered the small domain of the Pope, the Comtat Venaissin, as a Huguenot leader.[879] Conde had dexterously escaped the snares laid for him, and had taken refuge with his brother, Navarre.[880] Their spies reported to the Guises a state of universal commotion; and deputies from all parts of France rehea.r.s.ed in the ears of the Bourbon princes the story of the usurpations of the Guises and the Protestant grievances, and urged them, by every consideration of honor and safety, to undertake to redress them.[881] The Guises had for some time been pressing the King of Spain and the Pope to forward the convening of a universal council, without which all would go to ruin.[882] In view of the great apathy displayed both by Philip and by Pius--perhaps, also, with the secret hope of enticing Navarre and Conde to come within their reach[883]--they consented to the plan which Catharine de' Medici, at the suggestion of L'Hospital and Coligny, now advocated, of summoning a council of notables to devise measures for allaying the existing excitement.[884]

[Sidenote: a.s.sembly of notables at Fontainebleau, August 21, 1560.]

On the twenty-first of August this celebrated a.s.sembly was convened by royal letters in the stately palace at Fontainebleau.[885] Antoine of Navarre and the Prince of Conde declined, on specious pretexts, the king's invitation. Constable Montmorency accepted it, but came with a formidable escort of eight hundred attendants. His three nephews, the Chatillons, followed his example, and shared his protection. At the appointed hour a brilliant company was gathered in the s.p.a.cious apartments of the queen mother. On either side of the king's throne sat Mary of Scots, and Catharine de' Medici, and the young princes--Charles Maximilian, Duke of Orleans, Edward Alexander, and Hercules.[886] Four cardinals, in their purple--Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, and Chatillon--sat below. Next to these were placed the Duke of Guise, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom; the Duke of Montmorency, as constable; L'Hospital, as chancellor; Marshals St. Andre and Brissac; Admiral Coligny; Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne; Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans; Montluc, Bishop of Valence; and the other members of the privy council. In front of these, the members of the Order of St. Michael, and the rest of the notables, occupied lower benches.[887]

[Sidenote: Chancellor L'Hospital's speech.]