History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 60

[Sidenote: The Huguenots are summoned.]

[Sidenote: Beza's retort.]

These preliminaries over, the Protestants were summoned. Conducted by the captain of the royal guard, they entered and advanced toward the king, until their farther progress was arrested by a railing which separated the s.p.a.ce allotted to the king and his courtiers, with the a.s.sembled prelates, from the lower end of the hall filled by a crowd of curious spectators.[1115] No place had been a.s.signed the Protestants where they might sit during the colloquy on an equality with their opponents, the Romish ecclesiastics. They were subjected to the paltry indignity of appearing in the guise of culprits brought to the bar to be judged and condemned. In truth, the spirit of conciliation which L'Hospital had been at so much pains to inculcate had found little welcome in the breast of the prelates. "Here come the Genevese curs,"

exclaimed a cardinal as the reformers made their appearance.

"Certainly," quietly retorted Beza, whose ear had caught the insulting expression, turning to the quarter whence it came, "faithful dogs are needed in the Lord's sheep-fold to bark at the rapacious wolves."[1116]

[Sidenote: Beza's prayer and address.]

When the twelve ministers had reached the bar, Theodore Beza, at their request, addressed the king: "Sire, since the issue of all enterprises, both great and small, depends upon the aid and favor of our G.o.d, and chiefly when these enterprises concern the interests of His service and matters which surpa.s.s the capacity of our understandings, we hope that your Majesty will not find it amiss or strange if we begin by the invocation of His name, supplicating Him after the following manner."

As the orator p.r.o.nounced these words, he reverently kneeled upon the floor. His colleagues and the delegates of the churches followed his example. A deep solemnity fell upon the a.s.sembly. According to one account of the scene, even the Roman cardinals stood with uncovered heads while the Huguenot minister prayed. Catharine de' Medici joined with still greater devotion, while King Charles remained seated on his throne.[1117] After a moment's pause, Beza, with hands stretched out to heaven, according to the custom of the reformed churches of France,[1118] commenced his prayer with the confession of sins which in the Genevan liturgy of Calvin formed the introduction to the wors.h.i.+p of the Lord's day.[1119]

"Lord G.o.d! Almighty and everlasting Father, we acknowledge and confess before Thy holy majesty that we are miserable sinners, conceived and born in guilt and corruption, p.r.o.ne to do evil, unfit for any good; who, by reason of our depravity, transgress without end Thy holy commandments. Wherefore we have drawn upon ourselves by Thy just sentence, condemnation and death. Nevertheless, O Lord, with heartfelt sorrow we repent and deplore our offences; and we condemn ourselves and our evil ways, with a true repentance beseeching that Thy grace may relieve our distress. Be pleased, therefore, to have compa.s.sion upon us, O most gracious G.o.d! Father of all mercies; for the sake of thy son Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Redeemer. And, in removing our guilt and pollution, set us free and grant us the daily increase of Thy Holy Spirit; to the end that, acknowledging from our inmost hearts our unrighteousness, we may be touched with a sorrow that shall work true repentance, and that this may mortify all our sins, and thereby bear the fruit of holiness and righteousness that shall be well-pleasing to thee, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord and only Saviour.

"And, inasmuch as it pleaseth Thee this day so far to exhibit Thy favor to Thy poor and unprofitable servants, as to enable them with freedom, and in the presence of the king whom Thou hast set over them, and of the most n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious company on earth, to declare that which Thou hast given them to know of Thy holy Truth, may it please Thee to continue the course of Thy goodness and loving kindness, O G.o.d and Father of lights, and so to illumine our understandings, guide our affections, and form them to all teachableness, and so to order our words, that in all simplicity and truth, after having conceived, according to the measure which it shall please Thee to grant unto us, the secrets Thou hast revealed to men for their salvation, we may be able, both with heart and voice to propose that which may conduce to the honor and glory of Thy holy name, and the prosperity and greatness of our king and of all those who belong to him, with the rest and comfort of all Christendom, and especially of this kingdom. O Almighty Lord and Father, we ask Thee all these things in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Saviour, as He Himself hath taught us to seek them, saying: 'Our Father, which art in heaven, etc.'"[1120]

[Sidenote: His conciliatory remarks.]

Having concluded his pet.i.tions, Beza arose from his knees, and addressed the king. His speech was graceful and conciliatory.[1121] It was a great privilege, he said, for a faithful and affectionate subject to be permitted to see his prince, and thus to be more clearly impressed with the fealty and submission which is his due. Still happier was he if permitted to be seen by his prince, and, what was more important, to be heard, and finally accepted and approved by him. To these great advantages a part of Charles's very humble and obedient subjects, much to their regret, had long been strangers. It were sufficient ground for grat.i.tude to G.o.d to the end of their days that now at length they were granted an audience before the king and so n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious a company. But, when the same day that admitted them into the royal presence also invited, or rather kindly and gently constrained them with common voice to confess the name of their G.o.d, and declare the obedience they owed Him, their minds were so incompetent to conceive, their tongues so inadequate to utter the promptings of their hearts, that they preferred to confess their impotence by modest silence rather than to disparage so great a benefit by the defect of their words. Yet one of the points they had so long desired was still unfulfilled, and that the most important, namely the acceptance of their service as agreeable. Would to G.o.d that so happy a termination might by their coming be put, not so much to their past sufferings--of which the memory was well-nigh extinguished by this joyful day--as to the troubles that had afflicted the kingdom in consequence of religious dissensions, and to the attending ruin of so great a number of the king's poor subjects.

[Sidenote: The Huguenots victims of calumny.]

[Sidenote: Their creed.]

[Sidenote: Points of agreement.]

[Sidenote: His declaration as to the body of Christ.]

What, then, had hitherto prevented the Huguenots from obtaining a boon so long and ardently desired? It was the belief entertained by some that they were, through ambition or restless love of innovation, the enemies of all concord, and the impression in the minds of others that their arrogance demanded impossible conditions of peace. The prejudice arising from this and other sources to which he avoided an allusion, lest he might seem to be reopening old wounds, was so strong, that the reformed would have good reason to give way to despair, were they not sustained by a good conscience, by their a.s.surance of the gentleness and equity of Charles and the ill.u.s.trious princes of the blood, and by a charitable presumption that the prelates with whom they had come to confer were disposed to exert themselves with them in the common endeavor rather to make the truth clear than to obscure it. Respecting the extent of the differences between the prelatic and the reformed beliefs, those who represented them as of insignificant importance, and those who made them as great as between the creed of Christians and the creed of Jews or Moslems, were equally mistaken. If in some of the princ.i.p.al articles of the Christian faith there was full agreement, on others, alas! there was an opposition between their tenets. The orator here enumerated in considerable detail the articles of the ancient creeds in which the Huguenot, not less than the Roman Catholic, professed his concurrence.

What then, some one would say, are not these the terms of our belief? In what are we at variance? To which inquiry the true answer was, that the two sides differed not only because they gave some of these articles divergent interpretations, but because the Church had built upon this foundation a structure that comported little with it, "as if the Christian religion were an edifice which was never finished." To speak with greater detail, the reformed maintained, in opposition to the Romish theory, that there could be no satisfaction for sin save in Christ, and that to suppose the blessed Saviour to pay but a part of the price of man's salvation, would be to rob him of his perfect mercy, and of his offices of prophet, priest, and king. They agreed with the Romanists neither in their definition of justifying faith, nor in their account of its origin and effects. The same might be said respecting good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of G.o.d and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the word sacrament. The sacraments are visible signs by means of which our union with our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely signified or set forth, but is truly offered to us on the Lord's side, and therefore confirmed, sealed, and, as it were, engraved by the Holy Spirit's efficiency in those who by a true faith apprehend Him who is thus signified and presented to them. We, consequently, agree that in the sacraments there must necessarily supervene a heavenly, a supernatural change. For we do not a.s.sert that the water of holy baptism is simply water, but that it is a true sacrament of our regeneration, and of the was.h.i.+ng of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ. So also we do not say that the bread is simply bread, but the sacrament of the precious body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was offered up for us. Yet we do not say that this change takes place in the substance of the signs, but in the use and end for which they are ordained." The reformer then touched upon the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation; both of which he rejected. "If then," he continued, "some one asks us, whether we make Jesus Christ absent from His Holy Supper, we answer that we do not. But, if we regard the local distance (as we must do, when His corporeal presence and His humanity distinctly considered are in question), we say that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth; since, as to ourselves, we are on the earth, and the sacraments also; while, as to Him, His flesh is in heaven, so glorified that his glory, as says St. Augustine, has not taken away from Him the nature, but only the infirmity of a true body."

[Sidenote: Outcry of the theologians of the Sorbonne.]

The last words of the sentence were inaudible, except to those who were close to the speaker. The words, "We say that His body is as far removed from the bread and wine as the highest heaven is from the earth," had fired the train to the magazine of concealed impatience and anger underlying the studied external calmness of the prelatical body. An explosion instantly ensued. The cry, "Blasphemavit! Blasphemavit Deum!"

resounded from every quarter.[1122] Beza's voice was drowned in the noisy expressions of disapproval by which the theologians of the Sorbonne sought to testify their own unimpeachable orthodoxy.[1123] It seemed for the moment as if the ecclesiastics would continue their repet.i.tion of the words and actions of the Jewish high-priest in the ancient Sanhedrim, and break up the conference with the exclamation: "What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy." Some of the prelates arose as if to leave, and Cardinal Tournon went so far as to address himself to Charles and beg him either to impose silence upon Beza, or to permit him and his brother ecclesiastics to retire. But no notice was taken of his request.[1124]

On the contrary, the queen and the Cardinal of Lorraine felt constrained to express their displeasure at this outburst of pa.s.sion on the part of the prelates, and their desire that the conference should proceed.[1125]

[Sidenote: Beza's peroration.]

When the storm had somewhat spent its violence, and comparative silence had been restored, Beza, in no wise discomposed by the uproar, resumed his interrupted discourse. He deemed it unnecessary to dwell upon the matter of the administration of holy baptism, he said, for none could confound the reformers with the Anabaptists, who found no more determined enemies than they were. With respect to the other five sacraments of the Romish Church, while the reformed refused to designate them by that name, they believed that among themselves true confirmation was established, penitence enjoined, marriage celebrated, ordination conferred, and the visitation of the sick and dying practised, conformably to G.o.d's Word. The last point--the government of the Church--Beza despatched with a few words; for, appealing to the prelates themselves to testify to the results of their recent deliberations, he described the structure ecclesiastic as one in which everything was so perverted, everything in such confusion and ruin, that scarce could the best architects in the world, whether they considered the present order or had regard to life and morals, recognize the remains, or detect the traces of that ancient edifice so symmetrically laid out and reared by the apostles. He closed by declaring the fervent desire of those whose spokesman he was for the restoration of the Church to its pristine purity, and by making on their behalf a warm profession of loyalty and devotion to their earthly king. As he concluded, Beza and his a.s.sociates again kneeled in prayer. Then rising, he presented anew to Charles the confession of faith of the reformed churches, begging him to receive it as the basis of the present conference between their delegates and the Romish prelates.[1126]

[Sidenote: Cardinal Tournon tries to cut short the conference.]

As soon as Beza had ended his speech, Cardinal Tournon, the oldest member of the Papal consistory in France, and presiding officer in the convocation of the prelates, rose, trembling with anger, and addressed the king. It was only by express command of Charles, he said, that the prelates had consented to hear "these new evangelists." They had hesitated from conscientious scruples, fearing, with good reason, as the event had proved, that they would utter words unworthy of entering the ears of a very Christian king, and calculated to offend the good people around him. It was for this reason that the ecclesiastical convocation had instructed him, in such case, humbly to entreat his Majesty to give no credit to the words of him who had spoken for "those of the new religion," and to suspend his judgment until he had heard the answer they intended to give. But for their respect for the king, he said, the prelates, on hearing the abominable blasphemies p.r.o.nounced in their hearing, would have risen and broken off the colloquy. He prayed Charles with the greatest humility to persevere in the faith of his fathers, and invoked the Virgin Mary and the blessed saints of paradise that thus it might be.[1127]

[Sidenote: Catharine's decision.]

How long the age-stricken cardinal, the active persecutor of an entire generation of reformers, would have proceeded in his diatribe against the "blasphemy" of the Genevese doctor, is doubtful. He was cut short in the midst of it by the queen mother, who, in a decided tone, informed him that the plan of the conference had been adopted only after mature deliberation, with the advice of the council of state and by consent of parliament. No change or innovation was contemplated, but the appeasing of the troubles incident upon diversity of religious sentiment, and the restoration to the right path of such as had erred. The matter in hand was to demonstrate the truth by means of the simple Word of G.o.d, which should be the sole rule. "We are here," she said, "for the purpose of hearing you on both sides, and of considering the matter on its own merits. Therefore, reply to the speech of Sieur de Beze which you have just heard." "The speech was too long for us to undertake to answer it on the spur of the moment," responded Tournon, in a more tractable tone; but he promised that, if a copy of it were given to them in writing, a suitable refutation would soon be forthcoming on the part of the prelates.[1128] Thus the conference broke up for the day.

[Sidenote: Advantages gained.]

It could not be denied that Beza had spoken with great effect. For the first time in forty years the Reformation had obtained a partial hearing. The time-honored fas.h.i.+on of condemning its professors without even the formality of a trial had for once been violated; and, to the satisfaction of some and the dismay of many, it was found that the arguments that could be alleged in its behalf were neither few nor insignificant. The Huguenots had acquired a new position in the eyes of the court; that was certain. They were not a few seditious persons, who must be put down. They were not a handful of enthusiasts, whom it were folly to attempt to reason with. The child had become a full-grown man, whose prejudices--if prejudices they were--must be overcome by calm argument, rather than removed by chastis.e.m.e.nt.[1129] If the studied arrangement of the bar at the Colloquy of Poissy had been employed by the petty malice of their opponents in order to give them the aspect of convicted culprits, public opinion, unbia.s.sed by such solemn trifling, regarded the disputants as equals in the eye of the law, and attempted to derive from the bearing of the champions some impression concerning the justice of their respective positions.

The change in the basis for the settlement of the controversy was not less apparent. For an entire generation the advocates of Protestantism had been pressing the claims of the Holy Scriptures as the ultimate authority for the decision of all doubtful questions. The only reply was a reference to the dogmas of the Church, and the demand of an unconditional submission to them. Beza had only reiterated the offer, made a thousand times by his fellow-reformers, to surrender at once his religious position should it be rendered untenable by means of proofs drawn from the Scriptures. Cardinal Tournon had again made the trite rejoinder of the clergy; but sensible persons were tired of the unsatisfactory repet.i.tion. Catharine had given expression to the peremptory requisition of all enlightened France when she announced the sole appeal as lying to the "simple Word of G.o.d."

[Sidenote: Brilliant success of Beza.]

From this exhibition of his brilliant oratorical powers, and from those displays that shortly followed, Theodore Beza acquired the highest reputation both with friend and foe. Even those who would have it that "he deceived the people," that his acquirements were superficial, that he lacked good judgment, and, on the whole, had "a very hideous soul,"

could not help admitting that he was of a fine presence, ready wit, and keen intellect, and that his excellent choice of language and ready utterance ent.i.tled him to the credit of eloquence.[1130] On the other hand, nothing could exceed the admiration and love excited by his ardent espousal of their cause in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Protestants in all parts of the kingdom. His appearance at Poissy became their favorite episode in recent history. His portrait was hung up in many a chamber. He was almost adored by whole mult.i.tudes of Frenchmen,[1131] as one whom n.o.ble birth, learning, and brilliant prospects had not deterred from following the dictates of his conscientious convictions; whom security in a foreign land had not rendered indifferent to the interests of the land of his birth; whose persuasive eloquence had won new adherents to the cause of the oppressed from among the rich and n.o.ble; who had maintained the truth unabashed in the presence of the king and "of the most ill.u.s.trious company on earth."

[Sidenote: His frankness justified.]

Nor will the candid student of history, if he but consider the att.i.tude of the prelates at the colloquy of Poissy, be more inclined than were the Protestants of his own day to censure Theodore Beza for any degree of alleged injudiciousness exhibited in that celebrated sentence in his speech which provoked the outburst of indignation on the part of Tournon and his colleagues. What, forsooth, had their reverences come to the colloquy expecting to hear from the lips of the reformed orators? If not the most orthodox of sentiments--more orthodox than many sentiments whose proclamation had been tolerated in their own private convocation--was there not a moderate allowance of hypocrisy in their pretended horror at the impiety of the heretic Beza? For certainly it was scarcely to be antic.i.p.ated by the most sanguine that he would profess an unwavering belief in the trans.m.u.tation of the substance of the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ that suffered on the cross; seeing that for a little more than a third of a century those of whom he was the avowed representative had, it must be admitted, pretty clearly testified to the contrary on a thousand "estrapades" from the _Place de Greve_ to the remotest corner of France.

Surely this extreme sensitiveness, this refined orthodoxy, unable to endure the simple enunciation of an opinion differing from their own on the part of an avowed opponent, savored a little of affectation; the more so as it came from prelates whose solicitude for their flocks had been manifested more in the way of seeking to obtain as large a number of folds as possible, than in the way of giving any special pastoral supervision to one, and who found a more congenial residence at the dissolute court where pleasures and preferment could best be obtained, than in obscure dioceses where a rude peasantry were thirsting for instruction in the first rudiments of a Christian education. The truth was--and no one was so blind as not to see it--that the Romish prelates had come determined to seize the first good opportunity to break up the colloquy, because from the colloquy they had good reason to apprehend serious injury to their interests. Nothing short of a complete betrayal of his cause by Beza could have precluded this.[1132] Had he been never so cautious, he could not have avoided giving some handle to those who were watching him so closely. Not the nature of the sentiment he expressed, but the danger lest the prelates might take advantage of it to refuse peremptorily to proceed with the colloquy, was the true ground of Catharine's displeasure.[1133] In order to remove this, so far as it might be based upon any misapprehension of the import of his words, Beza addressed to the queen, on the next day, a dignified but conciliatory letter of explanation.[1134]

[Sidenote: The prelates' notion of a conference.]

A full week elapsed before the Cardinal of Lorraine was ready to make his reply. Meantime the prelates had met, and had resolved that, instead of embracing a discussion of the entire field of controversy between the two churches, the conference should be restricted to _two_ points--the nature of the church and the sacraments. It was even proposed that a formula of faith should be drawn up and submitted to the Protestant ministers. If they refused to subscribe to it, they were to be formally excommunicated, and the conference abruptly broken off. Such was the crude notion of a colloquy conceived by the prelates. No discussion at all, if possible![1135] Otherwise only on those points where agreement was most difficult, and it was easiest to excite the _odium theologic.u.m_ of the by-standers. On the other hand, when this came to the ears of the Protestants, they felt constrained to draw up another solemn protest to the king against the folly of making the prelates judges in a suit in which they appeared also as one of the parties--a course so impolitic that it would rob the colloquy of all the good effects that had been expected to flow from it.[1136]

[Sidenote: September 16th.]

[Sidenote: Peter Martyr arrives.]

[Sidenote: The Cardinal of Lorraine's reply.]

[Sidenote: The Huguenots to wait for their faith to grow old.]

The remonstrance was not without its effect. On the next day, the sixteenth of September, the same a.s.semblage was again gathered in the conventual refectory of Poissy, to hear the reply of the Cardinal of Lorraine. The reformers appeared as on the previous occasion; but their ranks had received a notable accession in the venerable Peter Martyr, just arrived from Zurich. The prelates had, it is true, objected to the admission of a native of Italy; for the invitation, it was urged, had been extended only to Frenchmen. But the queen, who had greeted her distinguished countryman with flattering marks of attention, interfered in his behalf, and, at the last moment, announced it to be her desire that he should appear at the colloquy.[1137] The same trickery that had brought Beza to the bar, in order to give him the appearance of a criminal put upon trial, rather than that of the representative of a religious party claiming to possess the unadulterated truth, a.s.signed Charles of Lorraine a pulpit among his brother prelates, where, with a theologian more proficient in theological controversy at his elbow, he could a.s.sume the air of a judge giving his final sentence respecting the matters in dispute.[1138] His long exordium was devoted to a consideration of the royal and the sacerdotal authority, each of which he in turn extolled. Then pa.s.sing to the particular occasion of the convocation of so goodly a number of archbishops, bishops, and theologians--to all of whom he professed himself inferior in intelligence, knowledge, and eloquence--he expressed most sincere pity for the persons who a week ago had, by the king's command, been introduced into this a.s.sembly--persons long separated from the prelates by a discordant profession of faith and by insubordination, but showing, according to their own a.s.sertions, some desire to be instructed by returning to this their native land and to the house of their fathers, who stood ready to receive and embrace them as children so soon as they should recognize the Church's authority. He would utter no reproaches, but compa.s.sionate their infirmity. He would recall, not reject; unite, not separate. The prelates had gladly heard the confession of faith the Huguenots had made, and heartily wished that, as they agreed in the words of that doc.u.ment, so they might also agree in the interpretation of its articles. Dismissing the consideration of the remaining points, as requiring more time than could be given on a single day, the cardinal undertook to prove only two positions, viz.: that the Church is not an invisible, but a visible organization, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is really and bodily present in the Holy Supper. He then called upon the reformed ministers, if, in their views respecting the eucharist, they could accord neither with the Latin Church, nor with the Greek, nor with the Lutherans of Germany, at least to seek that solitude for which they seemed to long. "If you have so little desire to approach our faith and our practice," he said, "go also farther from us, and disturb no longer the flocks over which you have no legitimate charge, according to the authority which we have of G.o.d; and, allowing your new opinions, if G.o.d permit, to grow as old as our doctrine and traditions have grown, you will restore peace to many troubled consciences and leave your native land at rest." He urged Charles to cling steadfastly to the faith of his ancestors, of whom none had gone astray, and who had transmitted to him the proud t.i.tle of "Very Christian" and of "First Son of the Church." He exhorted the queen mother and his other n.o.ble hearers to emulate the glorious examples set for their imitation by Clotilde, who brought Clovis to the Christian religion, and by their own ill.u.s.trious ancestry; and he concluded by declaring the unalterable determination of the ecclesiastics of the Gallican Church never to forsake the holy, true, and Catholic doctrine which they preached, and to sustain which they would not spare their blood nor their very lives.[1139]

[Sidenote: Tournon's new demand.]

[Sidenote: Beza asks a hearing.]

Such was the substance of the speech of Charles of Lorraine, so long heralded by his brother ecclesiastics and by the devout Roman Catholics of the land as the sure refutation of all the heresies which the reformers might advance. It was fitting that some signal proof of its success should be given. Scarcely had Lorraine ceased when the whole body of prelates arose and gathered around the throne. Tournon was again their spokesman. He declared the full approval with which the Gallican bishops regarded the address of the Cardinal of Lorraine. They were ready, if need be, to sign it with their own blood, for it was in accordance with the will of Christ and of his bride, our Mother Holy Church. They begged Charles to give it full credit, and persevere in the Catholic faith of his fathers. Let the Protestants sign what the cardinal had said, as a preliminary to their receiving further instruction. If they refused, let Charles purge his very Christian realm of them, so that there might be only "_une foy_, _une loy_, _un roy_."[1140] He was followed at once by Theodore Beza, who, on the contrary, urged his Majesty to grant him the liberty of replying on the very spot to the arguments of his opponent. But Catharine, after a brief consultation with the members of the royal council seated near her, denied the request, and adjourned the discussion until another occasion.[1141]

[Sidenote: Advancing shadows of civil war.]

The opportunity thus promised, however, seemed distant and doubtful. The determination of the prelates to have nothing to do with any project for a fair and equal conference was undisguised, and rumors were frequent and ominous that the queen would yield before their resolute att.i.tude.

The decision of the reformers, under these circ.u.mstances, was soon taken: it was, that, if these repeated delays were persisted in, they would leave the court, protesting against the injustice which had been manifested to them and to their cause.[1142] Yet their anxiety was great. That dark cloud of portentous aspect could be descried by all sharp-sighted observers. It was the approaching storm of civil war, every moment rising higher above the horizon.[1143] Even now its advent was heralded by the anarchy pervading entire provinces--a righteous retribution for the sanguinary legislation and the yet more barbarous executions ordered by the courts of law, to repress the free action of the human intellect in the most n.o.ble sphere in which its energies could be exercised--the region of religious thought.

[Sidenote: Another conference reluctantly conceded, September 24th.]

[Sidenote: Beza's reply to the Cardinal of Lorraine.]

[Sidenote: Claude D'Espense.]

[Sidenote: Claude de Sainctes.]