History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 33

One of them was an advocate in parliament; both were elders of the reformed church. Five days later a physician and a solicitor met the same fate, but endured greater sufferings, as the wind blew the flames from beneath them, prolonging their torture; and these were quickly followed by two students at Paris, both of them from the southern part of the realm (on the twenty-third of October).[639]

[Sidenote: Intercession of the Swiss cantons and others.]

[Sidenote: Calvin's interest.]

Meanwhile the wretched prisoners were not deserted by their brethren.

Their innocence of the dreadful crimes laid to their charge was maintained in pamphlets, which showed that these accusations were but repet.i.tions of slanders invented by the heathen to overwhelm the early Christians. Their doctrinal orthodoxy was proved by citations from the early church fathers.[640] The Protestants of Paris found means to introduce a long remonstrance into the very chamber of the king.

Unfortunately, it had as little influence upon him as similar productions had had with his predecessor. In Switzerland and in a portion of Germany the tidings made a deep impression. Less than two weeks after the blow had been struck at the small community of Parisian Protestants, Calvin wrote the first of a series of letters calculated to sustain their drooping courage, and suggested some of the wise ends Providence might have in view in permitting so severe a discipline.[641]

Meantime he applied himself vigorously to arouse in their behalf an effective intervention. "My good brethren," he wrote to the people of Lausanne, "though all the rest should not suffice to move the hearts of those brethren to whom an appeal is made, yet this emergency admits of no delay. It can scarcely be but that, amid so many tortures, first one and then another be involved in them, until the number of sufferers become an infinite one. In short, the whole kingdom will be in flames.

The question no longer is how to satisfy the desire of the poor brethren, but, if we have a single spark of humanity within us, to succor them in such extremity.... Though money be not promptly obtained elsewhere, yet shall I make such efforts, should I be obliged to pledge my head and my feet, that it be forthcoming here."[642]

Beza, with his a.s.sociates, Carmel, Farel, and Bude, at the same time, by Calvin's request, took active steps to induce the Protestant cantons and princes to intercede with Henry, and their exertions were not in vain.[643] It was the object of the reformers to enlist the intervention of those Protestant powers, in particular, whose alliance and a.s.sistance might be deemed indispensable by the French king in his present straits.[644] The four "evangelical" Swiss cantons, encouraged by the success of a recent mission in behalf of the Waldenses of Piedmont, sent to Paris a deputation, whose appearance was greeted by the Protestants with the utmost joy. The amba.s.sadors, however, allowed themselves to be cajoled and deceived by the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom they had the imprudence to intrust their pet.i.tion. In reply to their address to the king, they were told (on the fifth of November), in the name of his Majesty, that he invited the confederates in future to trouble themselves no further with the internal affairs of his kingdom, especially in matters of religion, since he was resolved to follow in the steps of his predecessors.[645] Discouraged by this rebuff, they did not even attempt to press the matter upon the king's notice, or by a personal interview endeavor to mitigate his anger against their brethren. It had been better never to have engaged in the intercession than support it so weakly.[646] The German princes could not be induced to give to the affair the consideration it merited; but a letter of the Count Palatine seems to have somewhat diminished the violence of the persecution.[647]

[Sidenote: Constancy of most of the prisoners.]

The constancy of the victims, by disconcerting the plans of their enemies, doubtless contributed much to the temporary lull. No one attracted in this respect greater attention than the most ill.u.s.trious person among the prisoners--the daughter of the Seigneur de Rambouillet and wife of De Rentigny, standard-bearer of the Duke of Guise--who resolutely rejected the pardon, based on a renunciation of her faith, which her father and husband brought her from the king, and urged her with tears to accept.[648] Others, who, on account of their youth, were expected to be but poor advocates of their doctrinal views, proved more than a match for their examiners. The course was finally adopted of distributing the prisoners, about one hundred in number, in various monastic establishments, whose inmates might win them back to the Roman Catholic Church, whether by argument or by harsher means. The judges could thus rid themselves of the irksome task of lighting new fires, and the energies of the religious orders were put to some account. But the result hardly met the expectations formed. If a few Protestants obtained their liberty, and incurred the censures of their brethren, by unworthy confessions of principle,[649] many more were allowed to escape by the monks, who soon had reason to desire "that their cloisters might be purged of such pests, through fear lest the contagion should spread farther," and found it "burdensome to support without compensation so large a number of needy persons."[650]

[Sidenote: Controversial pamphlets.]

While the Protestants were thus demonstrating, by the fort.i.tude with which they encountered severe suffering and even death, the sincerity of their convictions and the purity of their lives, their enemies were unremitting in exertions to aggravate the odium in which they were held by the people. An inquisitor and doctor of the Sorbonne, the notorious De Mouchy, or Demochares, as he called himself, wrote a pamphlet to prove them heretics by the decisions of the doctors. A bishop found the signs of the true church in the _bells_ at the sound of which the Catholics a.s.sembled, and marks of Antichrist in the _pistols_ and _arquebuses_ whose discharge was said to be the signal for the gathering of the heretics. A third controversialist went so far as to accuse the Protestants not only of impurity, but of denying the divinity of Christ, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and even the existence of G.o.d.[651]

[Sidenote: Capture of Calais, January, 1558.]

Meanwhile, public affairs a.s.sumed a more encouraging aspect. Francis of Guise, recalled from Italy, where his ill-success had been the salvation of the poor Waldenses in their Alpine valleys,[652] had a.s.sumed command of a large force, consisting partly of the troops he had taken to Italy, partly of n.o.blemen and gentlemen that flocked to his standard in answer to the king's summons for the defence of the French capital. With this army he succeeded in capturing, in the beginning of January, 1558, the city of Calais, for two hundred years an English possession.[653] The achievement was not a difficult one. The fortifications had been suffered to go to ruin, and the small garrison was utterly insufficient to resist the force unexpectedly sent against it.[654] But the success raised still higher the pride of the Guises.

[Sidenote: Registry of the inquisition edict.]

[Sidenote: Antoine of Navarre, Conde, and other princes favor the Reformation.]

The auspicious moment was seized by the Cardinal of Lorraine to induce Henry, on the ninth of January, to hold in parliament a _lit de justice_, and compel the court to register in his presence the obnoxious edict of the previous year, establis.h.i.+ng the _inquisition_.[655] But the engine which had been esteemed both by Pope and king the only sure means of repressing heresy, failed of its end. New churches arose; those that previously existed rapidly grew.[656] The Reformation, also, now, for the first time, was openly avowed by men of the first rank in the kingdom. Its opponents were filled with dismay upon beholding Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, his brother Louis, Prince of Conde, and Francois d'Andelot, brother of Admiral Coligny, at the head of the hitherto despised "Lutherans." Antoine de Bourbon-Vendome was, next to the reigning monarch and his children, the first prince of the blood.

Since his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret--in consequence of which he became t.i.tular King of Navarre--he had resided for much of the time in the city of Pan, where his more ill.u.s.trious son, Henry the Fourth, was born. Here he had attended the preaching of Protestant ministers. On his return to court, not long after the capture of Calais, he took the decided step of frequenting the gatherings of the Parisian Protestants.

Subsequently he rescued a prominent minister--Antoine de Chandieu--from the Chatelet, in which he was imprisoned, by going in person and claiming him as a member of his household.[657] Well would it have been for France had the Navarrese king always displayed the same courage.

Conde and D'Andelot were scarcely less valuable accessions to the ranks of the Protestants.

[Sidenote: Emba.s.sy from the Protestant Electors of Germany.]

Other causes contributed to delay the full execution of the plan of the Inquisition. A united emba.s.sy from the three Protestant Electors of Germany--the Count Palatine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Marquis of Brandenburg--and from the Dukes of Deux Ponts and Wurtemberg, bearing a powerful appeal to Henry in behalf of his persecuted subjects, arrived in Paris.[658] Such n.o.ble and influential pet.i.tioners could not be dismissed--especially at a time when their a.s.sistance was indispensable--without a gracious reply;[659] and, in order that the German princes might not have occasion to accuse Henry of too flagrant bad faith, the persecution was allowed for a short time to abate.

[Sidenote: Psalm-singing on the Pre aux Clercs.]

An incident of an apparently trivial character, which happened at Paris not long after, proved very clearly that the severities inflicted on some of those connected with the meeting in the Rue St. Jacques had utterly failed of accomplis.h.i.+ng their object. On the southern side of the Seine, opposite the Louvre, there stretched, just outside of the city walls, a large open s.p.a.ce--the public grounds of the university, known as the _Pre aux Clercs_.[660] This spot was the favorite promenade of the higher cla.s.ses of the Parisians. It happened that, on a certain afternoon in May,[661] a few voices in the crowd began to sing one of the psalms which Clement Marot and Theodore de Beze had translated into French. At the sound the walks and games were forsaken. The tune was quickly caught up, and soon the vast concourse joining in the words, either through sympathy or through love of novelty, the curious were attracted from all quarters to listen to so strange an entertainment.

For many successive evenings the same performance was repeated. The numbers increased, it was said, to five or six thousand. Many of the chief personages of the kingdom were to be seen among those who took part. The King and Queen of Navarre were particularly noticed because of the pleasure they manifested. By the inmates of the neighboring College of the Sorbonne the demonstration was interpreted as an open avowal of heresy. The use of the French language in devotional singing was calculated to throw contempt upon the time-honored usage of performing divine service in the Latin tongue.[662] To the king, at this time absent from the city, the psalm-singing was represented as a beginning of sedition, which must be suppressed lest it should lead to the destruction at once of his faith and of his authority. Henry, too ready a listener to such suggestions, ordered the irregularity to cease; and the Protestant ministers and elders of Paris, desirous of giving an example of obedience to the civil power in things indifferent, enjoined on their members to desist from singing the psalms elsewhere than in their own homes.[663]

[Sidenote: Conference of Cardinals Lorraine and Granvelle.]

The visit of the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Lorraine, who was permitted to meet her son upon the borders of France, afforded a good opportunity for an informal discussion of the terms of the peace that was to put an end to a war of which both parties were equally tired. There, in the fortress of Peronne, the Cardinal of Lorraine held a conference with Antoine Perrenot, Cardinal of Granvelle; and a friends.h.i.+p was cemented between the former and the Spanish court boding no good for the quiet of France or the stability of the throne.

[Sidenote: D'Andelot, Coligny's younger brother, denounced.]

Little was effected in the direction of peace. But Cardinal Lorraine received valuable hints touching the best method for humbling the enemies of his house. Of these no one was more formidable than D'Andelot, who had distinguished himself greatly in the war on the Flemish borders. This young n.o.bleman, the Bishop of Arras affirmed, had been found, during the captivity from which he had recently escaped, to be infected with the contagion of the "new doctrines." Since his return to France, he had even ventured to send a heretical volume to console his brother, the admiral, in prison. The cardinal, jealous of the houses of Chatillon and Montmorency, promptly reported to the king the story of D'Andelot's defection from the faith. His brother, the Duke of Guise, loudly declared that, although he was ready to march to the siege of Thionville, he could entertain no hope of success if D'Andelot were suffered to accompany him, in command of the French infantry.[664]

[Sidenote: D'Andelot in Brittany.]

The sympathy of the younger Chatillon was daily becoming more openly avowed. On a recent visit to Brittany (April, 1558), he had taken with him Fleury and Loiseleur, Protestant ministers. For the first time, the westernmost province of France heard the doctrines preached a generation before in Meaux. The crowd of provincial n.o.bles, flocking to pay their respects to D'Andelot and his wife, Claude de Rieux, heiress of vast estates in this region, were both surprised and gratified at enjoying the opportunity of listening to preachers whose voice had penetrated to almost every nook of France save this. So palpable were the effects, that D'Andelot's brief tour in Brittany furnished additional grounds for Henry's suspicions respecting the young n.o.bleman's soundness in the faith.[665]

[Sidenote: D'Andelot summoned to appear before the king.]

[Sidenote: His manly defence.]

D'Andelot was summoned to appear before the king and clear himself of the charges preferred against him. Henry is said, indeed, to have sent previously D'Andelot's brother, the Cardinal of Chatillon, and his cousin, Marshal Montmorency, the constable's eldest son, to urge him to make a submissive and satisfactory explanation. But their exertions were futile. Henry began the conversation by reminding D'Andelot of the great intimacy he had always allowed him and the love he bore him. He told him that he had expected of him anything rather than a revolt from the religion of his prince and an adherence to new doctrines. And he announced as the princ.i.p.al points in his conduct which he condemned, that he had allowed the "Lutheran" views to be preached on his estates, that he had frequented the _Pre aux Clercs_, that he absented himself from the ma.s.s, and that he had sent "books from Geneva" to his brother, the admiral, in his captivity. D'Andelot replied with frankness and intrepidity. He professed grat.i.tude for the many favors he had received from the monarch, a grat.i.tude he had never tired of making known by perilling life and property in that prince's cause. But the doctrine he had caused to be preached was good and holy, and such as his forefathers had held. He denied having been at the _Pre aux Clercs_, but avowed his entire approval of the service of praise in which the mult.i.tude had there engaged. As for his absence from the ma.s.s, he thanked G.o.d for removing the veil of ignorance that once covered his eyes, and declared that, with the Almighty's favor, he would never again be present at its celebration. In fine, he begged Henry to regard his life and property as being entirely at the royal disposition, but to leave him a free conscience. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who alone of the courtiers was present, here interposed to warn the speaker of the bad way into which he had entered; but D'Andelot replied by appealing to the prelate's own conscience in testimony of the truth of the doctrines he had once favored, but now, from ambitious motives, persecuted.

[Sidenote: Henry orders him to be imprisoned.]

[Sidenote: Embarra.s.sment of the court.]

Greatly displeased with so frank an avowal of sentiments that would have cost one less n.o.bly connected his life, Henry now pointed to the collar of the "Order of St. Michael" around D'Andelot's neck, and exclaimed: "I did not give you this order to be so employed; for you swore to attend ma.s.s and to follow my religion." "I knew not what it is to be a Christian," responded D'Andelot; "nor, had G.o.d then touched my heart as He now has, should I have accepted it on such a condition."[666] Unable any longer to endure the boldness of D'Andelot--who richly deserved the t.i.tle he popularly bore, _the fearless knight_[667]--Henry angrily commanded him to leave his presence. The young man was arrested and taken by the archers of the guard to Meaux, whence he was subsequently removed to Melun.[668] The position of the court was, however, an embarra.s.sing one. Henry manifested no desire to retain long as a prisoner, much less to bring to the _estrapade_, the nephew of the constable, and a warrior who had himself held the honorable post of Colonel-General of the French infantry, and was second to none in reputation for valor and skill. The most trifling concession would be sufficient to secure the scion of the powerful families of Chatillon and Montmorency. Even this concession, however, could not for a considerable time be gained. D'Andelot resisted every temptation, and his correspondence breathed the most uncompromising determination.

[Sidenote: D'Andelot's constancy.]

[Sidenote: His temporary weakness.]

In a long and admirable letter to Henry, it is true, he humbly asked pardon for the offence his words had given. And he begged the king to believe that, "save in the matter of obedience to G.o.d and of conscience," he would ever faithfully expose life and means to fulfil the royal commands. But he also reiterated his inability to attend the ma.s.s, and plainly denounced as blasphemy the approval of any other sacrifice than that made upon the Cross.[669] To the ministers of Paris he wrote, expressing a resolution equally strong; and the letters of the latter, as well as of the great Genevese reformer, were well calculated to sustain his courage. But D'Andelot was not proof against the sophistries of Ruze, a doctor of the Sorbonne and confessor of the king.

Moved by the entreaties of his wife,[670] of his uncle the constable, and of his brother the Cardinal of Chatillon, he was induced, after two months of imprisonment, to consent to be present, but without taking any part, at a celebration of the ma.s.s. By the same priest D'Andelot sent a submissive message to the king, to which the bearer, we have reason to believe, attributed a meaning quite different from that which D'Andelot had intended to convey. The n.o.ble prisoner was at once released; but the voice of conscience, uniting with that of his faithful friends, soon led him to repent bitterly of his temporary, but scandalous weakness. From this time forward he resumes the character of the intrepid defender of the Protestant doctrines--a character of which he never again divests himself.[671]

[Sidenote: The b.l.o.o.d.y decemvirate.]

[Sidenote: Anxiety for peace.]

Meanwhile, Henry and his adviser, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who really little deserved the reproaches showered on them by the Pope, took steps to encounter the new a.s.saults which the reformed doctrines were making on the established church in every quarter of the kingdom. If the Parliament of Paris began to exhibit reluctance to shed more innocent blood, it was far otherwise with the decemvirate to whom the three cardinals had delegated their inquisitorial functions, and whose power was supreme.[672] But, to the prosecution of the work of exterminating heresy in France, the continuance of the war with Spain offered insurmountable obstacles. It diverted the attention of the government from the multiplication of "Lutheran" churches and communities. It hampered the court, by compelling it to mitigate its severities, in consequence of the importunate intercessions of its indispensable allies, the Protestant princes across the Rhine and the confederated cantons of Switzerland. Besides, the war had borne no fruit but disappointment. If Calais had been recovered, St. Quentin and other strongholds, which were the key to Paris, had been lost. The brilliant capture of Thionville (on the twenty-second of June, 1558) had been more than balanced by the disastrous rout of Marshal de Thermes at Gravelines (on the thirteenth of July).[673]

The almost uninterrupted hostilities of the last twelve years had not only exhausted the few thousand crowns which Henry had found in the treasury at his accession to the throne, but had reduced the French exchequer to as low an ebb as that of the Spanish king.[674] His antagonist was as anxious as Henry to reduce his expenditures, and obtain leisure for crus.h.i.+ng heresy in the Low Countries and wherever else it had shown itself in his vast dominions. Constable Montmorency, too, employed his powerful influence to secure a peace which would restore him liberty, and the place in the royal favor likely to be usurped by the Guises, if his absence from court were to last much longer. And Paul the Fourth was now as earnestly desirous of effecting a reconciliation between the contending monarchs--that they might unitedly engage in the holy work of persecution--as he had been a few years before to embroil them in war.[675]

[Sidenote: The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, April 3, 1559.]

The common desire for peace found expression in the appointment of plenipotentiaries, who met, about the middle of October, in the monastery of Cercamps, near Cambray. France was represented by Montmorency, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Marshal St. Andre, Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, and Claude de l'Aubespine, Secretary of State. The Duke of Alva, William of Orange, Ruy-Gomez de Silva, the Bishop of Arras, and Viglius appeared on the part of Philip. England and Savoy were also represented by their envoys. After preliminary discussions, the conference adjourned, to meet in February of the succeeding year at Cateau-Cambresis.[676] Here, on the third of April, 1559, was concluded a treaty of peace that terminated the struggle for ascendancy in which France and Spain had been engaged, with brief intermissions, ever since the accession of Francis the First and Charles the Fifth.

So far as France was concerned, it was an inglorious close. By a single stroke of the pen Henry gave up nearly two hundred places that had been captured by the French from their enemies during the last thirty years.

In return he received Ham, St. Quentin, and three other strongholds held by Philip on his northern frontier. All the fruits of many years of war and an infinite loss of life and treasure[677] were surrendered in an instant for a paltry price. The Duke of Savoy recovered states which had long been incorporated in the French dominions. The jurisdictions of two parliaments of France became foreign territory. The inhabitants of Turin were left to forget the language they had begun to speak well. The King of Spain could now come to the very gates of Lyons, which before the peace had stood, as it were, in the middle of the kingdom, but was now turned into a border city.[678]

[Sidenote: Sacrifice of French interests.]

Such were the concessions Henry was willing to make for the purpose of obtaining peace abroad, that he might turn his arms against his own subjects. Philip, if equally zealous, was certainly too prudent to exhibit his eagerness so clearly to his opponent. The interests of France had been sacrificed to the bigotry of her monarch and the selfishness of his advisers. When the terms of the agreement were made known, they awakened in every true Frenchman's breast a feeling of shame and disgust.[679] Henry himself manifested embarra.s.sment when attempting to justify his course.[680] Abroad the improbable tidings were received with incredulity.[681]

[Sidenote: Was there a secret treaty for the extermination of the Protestants?]

The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis contained but one article on the subject of religion--that which bound the monarchs of Spain and France to put forth their united exertions for securing a "holy universal council."

But common report had it that the omission of more detailed reference to the subject lying so near to the heart of both kings was fully compensated by a secret treaty taken up exclusively with this subject.[682] That treaty was represented as developing a plan which contemplated nothing less than the entire and violent destruction of heresy by the united efforts of their Catholic and Very Christian Majesties. By a single concerted ma.s.sacre of all dissidents, the whole of Europe was to be brought back to its allegiance to the see of St.

Peter.[683] Unfortunately, the secret treaty, if it ever existed, has never come to light; nor have we the testimony of a single person who pretends to have seen it, or to be acquainted with its contents. Indeed, the circ.u.mstances of the case seem to render such a united effort as the conjectural treaty supposes either Quixotic or superfluous--Quixotic, if the two monarchs, without the concurrence of the empire, whose crown had pa.s.sed from Charles, not to his son Philip, but to his brother Ferdinand, should inst.i.tute a scheme for a general crusade against the professors of the doctrines that had already gained a firm foothold in one-half of Germany, in Great Britain, and the Scandinavian lands of Northern Europe; superfluous, if it respected only the dominions of the high contracting powers. For the purpose of Henry was no less clearly and repeatedly proclaimed than that of Philip. No subject of either crown could ignore at whom the first blow would be struck, after the pressure of the foreign war had been removed.[684]

Nor, in the execution of their plans, could either monarch imagine himself to stand in need of the a.s.sistance of his royal brother; for it was not an open war to be carried on, but as yet a struggle with _persons_, numerous without doubt, but, nevertheless, _suspected_ rather than _convicted_ of heresy, and discovered, for the most part, only by diligent search.