History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 39

[Footnote 670: Cf. Calvin's letter to the Marq. of Vico, July 19, 1558.

Bonnet, Lettres franc., ii. 213, 214: "Sa femme luy monstrant son ventre pour l'esmouvoir a compa.s.sion du fruict qu'elle portoit."]

[Footnote 671: Among the many important services which the French Protestant Historical Society has rendered, the rescue from oblivion of the interesting correspondence relating to D'Andelot's imprisonment merits to be reckoned by no means the least (Bulletin, iii. 238-255).

Even the graphic narrative of the Histoire ecclesiastique fails to give the vivid impression conveyed by a perusal of these eight doc.u.ments emanating from the pens of D'Andelot, Macar (one of the pastors at Paris), and Calvin. The dates of these letters, in connection with a statement in the Hist. eccles., fix the imprisonment of D'Andelot as lasting from May to July, 1558. A month later Calvin wrote to Garnier: "D'Andelot, the nephew of the constable, has basely deceived our expectations. After having given proofs of invincible constancy, in a moment of weakness he consented to go to ma.s.s, if the king absolutely insisted on his doing so. He declared publicly, indeed, that he thus acted against his inclinations; he has nevertheless exposed the gospel to great disgrace. He now implores our forgiveness for this offence....

This, at least, is praiseworthy in him, that he avoids the court, and openly declares that he had never abandoned his principles." Letter of Aug. 29th, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460; see also Ath. Coquerel, Precis de l'histoire de l'egl. ref. de Paris, Pieces historiques, pp.

xxii.-lxxvi.; twenty-one letters of Macar belonging to 1558. If the reformers condemned D'Andelot's concession, Paul the Fourth, on the other hand, regarded his escape from the _estrapade_ as proof positive that not only Henry, but even the Cardinal of Lorraine, was lukewarm in the defence of the faith! Read the following misspelt sentences from a letter of Card. La Bourdaisiere, the French envoy to Rome, to the constable (Feb. 25, 1559), now among the MSS. of the National Library of Paris. The Pope had sent expressly for the amba.s.sador: "Il me declara que cestoit pour me dire quil sebayssoit grandement comme _sa mageste ne faysoit autre compte de punyr les hereticques de son Royaume et que limpunite de monsieur dandelot donnoit une tres mauvayse reputation a sadicte mageste_ devant laquelle ledict Sr. dandelot avoit confesse destre sacramentayre et _qui leust_ (qu 'il l'eut) _mene tout droit au feu comme il meritoit_ ... que _monsieur le cardinal de Lorrayne_, lequel sa Sainctete a fait son Inquisiteur, ne se sauroit excuser quil nayt _grandement failly_ ayant laysse perdre une si belle occasion dun _exemple si salutayre_ et qui luy pouvoit porter tant dhonneur et de reputation, mais _quil monstre bien que luy mesme favorise les hereticques_, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser de la puyssance que sadicte Sainctete luy a donnee." Of course, Paul could not let pa.s.s unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the Pontiff evidently regarded as a thing to be _executed_ rather than _spoken about_, and he therefore begged the French amba.s.sador to write the letter to the king in his own cipher, and advise him "to let no one in the world see his letter." Whereupon Card. La Bourdaisiere rather irreverently observes: "Je croy que le bonhomme pense que le roy dechiffre luy mesme ses lettres!" a supposition singularly absurd in the case of Henry, who hated _business_ of every kind. La Bourdaisiere conceived it, on the other hand, to be for his own interest to take the first opportunity to give private information of the entire conversation to the constable, D'Andelot's uncle, and to advise him that it would go hard with his nephew, should he fall into Paul's hands ("quil feroit un mauvais parti sil le tenoit"). Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i.

(appendix), 607, 608; Bulletin de l'histoire du prot. francais, xxvii.

(1878), 103, 104.]

[Footnote 672: Letter of Calvin, Aug. 29, 1558, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii.

460.]

[Footnote 673: De Thou (liv. 20), ii. 568, etc., 576, etc.]

[Footnote 674: Prescott, Philip II., i. 268-270, has described the straits in which Philip found himself in consequence of the deplorable state of his finances. Henry was compelled to resort to desperate schemes to procure the necessary funds. As early as February, 1554--a year before the truce of Vaucelles--he published an edict commanding all the inhabitants of Paris to send in an account of the silver plate they possessed. Finding that it amounted to 350,000 livres, he ordered his officers to take and convert it into money, which he retained, giving the owners twelve per cent. as interest on the compulsory loan. They were informed, and were doubtless gratified to learn, that the measure was not only one of urgency, but also precautionary--lest the necessity should arise for the _seizure_ of the plate, without compensation, it may be presumed. Reg. des ordon., _apud_ Felibien, H. de Paris, preuves, v. 287-290.]

[Footnote 675: Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 270.]

[Footnote 676: De Thou, ii. 584, 585, 660, etc.]

[Footnote 677: More than one hundred thousand lives and forty millions crowns of gold, if we may believe the Memoires de Vieilleville, ii. 408, 409. "Quod multo sanguine, pecunia incredibili, spatio multorum annorum Galli acquisierant, uno die _magna c.u.m ignominia_ tradiderunt," says the papal nuncio, Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. com., 1437. See, however, Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Am. tr., p. 127.]

[Footnote 678: Mem. de Vieilleville, _ubi supra_. The text of the treaty is given in Recueil gen. des anc. lois francaises, xiii. 515, etc., and in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. pt. 1, pp. 34, etc.; the treaty between France and England, with scrupulous exactness, as usual, in Dr.

P. Forbes, State Papers, i. 68, etc.]

[Footnote 679: The prevalent sentiment in France is strongly expressed by Brantome, by the memoirs of Vieilleville, of Du Villars, of Tavannes, etc. "La paix honteuse fut dommageable," says Tavannes; "les a.s.sociez y furent trahis, les capitaines abandonnez a leurs ennemis, le sang, la vie de tant de Francais negligee, cent cinquante forteresses rendues, pour tirer de prison un vieillard connestable, et se descharger de deux filles de France." Mem. de Gaspard de Saulx, seign. de Tavannes, ii.

242. Du Villars represents the Duke of Guise as remonstrating with Henry for giving up in a moment more than he could have lost in thirty years, and as offering to guard the least considerable city among the many he surrendered against all the Spanish troops: "Mettez-moy dedans la pire ville de celles que vous voulez rendre, je la conserveray plus glorieus.e.m.e.nt sur la bresche, etc." (Ed. Pet.i.tot, ii. 267, liv. 10). But the duke's own brother was one of the commissioners; and Soldan affirms the existence of a letter from Guise to Nevers (of March 27, 1559) in the National Library, fully establis.h.i.+ng that the duke and the cardinal understood and were pleased with the substance of the treaty (Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 266, note).]

[Footnote 680: "Henricus rex se propterea quac.u.mque ratione pacem inire voluisse dicebat, 'quod intelligeret, regnum Franciae ad heresim declinare, magnumque in numerum venisse, ita ut, si diutius diferret, neque ipsius conscientiae, neque regni tranquillitati prospiceret: ... se propterea ad quasvis pacis conditiones descendisse, ut regnum haereticis ac malis hominibus purgaret.' Haec ab eo satis frigide et c.u.m pudore dicebantur." Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. comment., 1437.]

[Footnote 681: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 682: "Selon l'article secret de la paix," says Tavannes (Mem., ii. 247, Ed. Pet.i.tot), "les heretiques furent bruslez en France, plus par crainte qu'ils ne suivissent l'exemple des revoltez d'Allemagne, que pour la religion." But, it may be asked, was there anything novel in this? It had needed no _secret article_, for a generation back, to conduct a "Christaudin" to the flames.]

[Footnote 683: The English commissioners, Killigrew and Jones, in a despatch written eight or nine months later, express the current belief respecting the wide scope of the persecution: "Wheras, upon the making of the late peace, _there was an appoinctement made betwene the late Pope, the French King, and the King of Spaine, for the joigning of their forces together for the suppression of religion_; it is said, that this King mindethe shortly to send to this new Pope [Pius IV.], for the renewing of the same league; _th' end wherof was to constraine the rest of christiendome, being protestants, to receive the Pope's authorite and his religion_; and therupon to call a generall counsaill." Letter from Blois, January 6, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 296.]

[Footnote 684: "Voila," says Agrippa d'Aubigne, "les conventions d'une paix en effect pour les royaumes de France et d'Espagne, en apparence de toute la Chrestiente, glorieuse aux Espagnols, desaventageuse aux Francois, _redoutable aux Reformez: car comme toutes les difficultez qui se presenterent au traicte estoient estouffees par le desir de repurger l'eglise_, ainsi, apres la paix establie, les Princes qui par elle avoient repos du dehors, _travaillerent par emulation a qui traitteroit plus rudement ceux qu'on appeloit Heretiques_: et de la nasquit l'ample subject de 40 ans de guerre monstrueuse." Histoire universelle, liv. i., c. xviii. p. 46.]

[Footnote 685: "Mais quand estant en France j'eus entendu de la propre bouche du Roy Henry, que le Duc d'Alve traictoit des moyens pour exterminer tous les suspects de la Religion en France, en ce Pays et par toute la Chrestiente, et que ledit Sieur Roy (qui pensoit, que comme j'avois este l'un des commis pour le Traicte de la Paix, avois eu communication en si grandes affaires, que je fusse aussi de cette partie) m'eust declare le fond du Conseil du Roy d'Espaigne et du Duc d'Alve: pour n'estre envers Sa Majeste en desestime, comme si on m'eust voulu cacher quelque chose, je respondis en sorte que ledit Sieur Roy ne perdit point cette opinion, ce qui luy donna occasion de m'en discourir a.s.ses suffisament pour entendre le fonds du project des Inquisiteurs."

Apologie de Guillaume IX., Prince d'Orange, etc., Dec. 13, 1580; _apud_ Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v., pt. 1, p. 392.]

[Footnote 686: De Thou, ii. (liv. xxii.), 653.]

[Footnote 687: "De nostre coste nous ne scavons pas si nous sommes loing des coups; tant y a _que nous sommes mena.s.sez par-dessus tout le reste_." Calvin to the Church of Paris, June 29, 1559. Lettres franc., ii. 282, 283. On the next day the author of the threats was mortally wounded in the tournament.]

[Footnote 688: The Duke of Alva gives all the details of this remarkable negotiation in a letter to Philip, June 26, 1559, now among the Papiers de Simancas, ser. B., Leg. no. 62-140, which M. Mignet has printed in his valuable series of articles reviewing the Collection of Calvin's French Letters by M. Bonnet, published in the Journal des Savants, 1857, pp. 171, 172. An extract, without date, from a MS. in the Library at Turin, seems to refer to this time: "Le roi (Henri II.) declare criminels de lese-majeste tous ceux qui auront quelque commerce avec Geneve, ou en recevront lettres. Cette ville est cause de tous les malheurs de la France, et il la poursuivra a outrance pour la reduire.

Il promet secours de gens de pied et de cheval au duc de Savoie, et vient d'obtenir du pape un bref pour decider le roi d'Espagne. Ils vont unir leurs forces pour une si sainte enterprise." Gaberel, Hist. de l'egl. de Geneve, i. 442.]

[Footnote 689: And he did not exaggerate the importance of the crisis.

The adherents of the reformed faith had become numerous, and many were restive under their protracted sufferings. "I am certainly enformid,"

wrote the English amba.s.sador, Throkmorton, to Secretary Cecil (May 15, 1559), "that about the number of fifty thousand persones in Gascoigne, Guyen, Angieu, Poictiers, Normandy, and Main, have subscribed to a confession in religion conformable to that of Geneva; which they mind shortly to exhibit to the King. There be of them diverse personages of good haviour (_sic_): and it is said amongst the same, that after they have delivered their confession to the King, that the spiritualty of Fraunce will do all they can to procure the King, to the utter subversion of them: for which cause, they say, _the spiritualty seemeth to be so glad of peaxe_, for that they may have that so good an occasion to worke their feate. But," he adds, "on th' other side these men minde, in case any repressing and subversion of their religion be ment and put in execution against them, to resist to the deathe." Forbes, State Papers, i. 92.]

[Footnote 690: "Heri scriptum est ad me Lutetia.... Sorbonicos ad Regem cucurrisse et tempus ejus eonveniendi aucupatos petiisse curam inquirendorum Lutheranorum. Quum Rex respondisset: 'Se eam curam Senatui manda.s.se, iique respondissent, '_totam curiam Parlamenti Parisienis inquinatam esse_,' iracunde intulisse, 'quid vultis igitur faciam, aut quid consilii capiam? An ut vos in eorum loc.u.m subst.i.tuam, et Rempublicam meam administretis?'" Letter of Hotman to Bullinger, Aug.

15, 1556, _apud_ Baum, Theod. Beza, i. 294.]

[Footnote 691: "The king, however, looks on all the judges with a suspicious eye." Calvin to Garnier, Aug. 29, 1558. Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460.]

[Footnote 692: Seguier, the leading jurist in the Parisian Parliament, like most of the judges that possessed much legal ac.u.men, and all those that were inclined to tolerant sentiments, was reputed unsound in the faith. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, the English amba.s.sador, says of him: "One of the Presidentes of the court of Parliament, named Siggier, a verey wise man, and one whome the constable for his judgement dothe muche stay upon, is noted to be a Protestant, and of the chiefest setters forward and favorers of the rest of that courte against the cardinalles." The same accurate observer states that, of the "six score"

counsellors present in the Parliamentary session which Henry attended, only "one of the Presidentes called Magistri and fourteen others were of the King and the cardinalles side, and did agree with them and condescend to the punishment of suche as shuld seme to resist to the cardinalles orders devised for reformation toching religion: the said Siggier, Rancongnet, and another President, with the rest of the counsaillors, were all against the cardinalles. Whereupon it is judged,"

he adds, "that the House of Guise hathe taken this occasion to weaken the constable: and because they wold not directly begynne with Siggier, for feare of manifesting their practise, they have founde the meanes to cause these counsaillors to be taken; supposing, that in th' examination of them somme mater may be gathered to toche Siggier withall, and therby to overthrow him." Despatch of June 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i.

127.]

[Footnote 693: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 106.]

[Footnote 694: When President Seguier was defending himself and his colleagues from the charge made by the Cardinal of Lorraine that they did not punish the heretics, and alleged as proof the fact that only three accused of "Lutheranism" remained in their prison, the cardinal rejoined: "Voire, vous les avez expediez en les renvoyant devant leurs evesques! Vrayement voyla une belle expedition, a ceux mesmes qui out faict profession de leur foy devant vous, tout au contraire de la saincte eglise de Rome!" Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et rep., p. 11.]

[Footnote 695: "Non, non, dict-il, monsieur le president; mais vous estes cause que non seulement Poictiers, mais tout Poictou jusques au pays de Bordeaux, Tholouse, Provence, et generalement France est toute remplie de ceste vermine, qui s'augmente et pullule soubs esperance de vous." Ib., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 696: Ib., _ubi supra_, Hist. eccles., i. 107, 108.]

[Footnote 697: La Place, Comm. de l'estat de la rel. et rep., p 12.]

[Footnote 698: Idem. Serra.n.u.s, de statu, etc., i., fol. 14.]

[Footnote 699: "There is another consideration of the proceadings of these maters, whiche (savyng your Majestie's correction) in myne opinion, is as great as the rest: ... that forasmuch as the mult.i.tude of Protestantes, being spred abrode in sundry partes of this realme in diverse congregations, ment now amiddes of all these triumphes to use the meane of somme n.o.bleman to exhibit to the King their confession (wherof your Majeste shall receive a copie herwithal) to th' intent the same mighte have bene openly notified to the world; the King being lothe, that at the arrivall here of the Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Alva, and others, these maters shuld have appeared so farre forward, hathe thought good before hande, for the daunting of suche as might have semed to be doers therin, to prevent their purpose by handeling of these counsaillors in this sorte." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 128.]

[Footnote 700: Vieilleville, ii. 401-404; De Thou, ii. 667; Forbes, State Papers, i. 127.]

[Footnote 701: Mem. de Vieilleville, ii. 405. The date of Henry's visit to parliament is not free from the same contradictory statements that affect many of the most important events of history. De Thou, and, following him, Felibien, Browning, and others, place it five days later than I have done in the text. La Place, the anonymous "Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II." (in the Recueil des choses memorables, published in 1565, and later in the Memoires de Conde), Castelnau, the Histoire eccles., etc., are our best authorities. As Sir Nicholas Throkmorton gave an account of the _Mercuriale_ in his despatch to the queen of June 13th (Forbes, State Papers, i. 126-130), I am surprised that Dr. White, who refers, to this interesting paper (although by an oversight ascribing it to June 19th) should, while correcting M. de Felice's error, have preferred the date of June 15th. "Ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew," Am. ed., p. 51.]

[Footnote 702: Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. (Recueil des choses memorables, 1565.) Dulaure, Hist. de Paris, ii. 434-437. Cf. also the maps accompanying that work.]

[Footnote 703: The Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. add that Henry demanded the reason of the Parliament's delay to register an edict they had received from him against the "Lutherans"--doubtless the last--establis.h.i.+ng the inquisitorial commission of three cardinals.

"Cest edict estoit sorti de l'oracle dudict cardinal de Lorreine." Baum, Theodore Beza, ii. 31, note, etc., has already called attention to the gross inaccuracies of Browning, in his description of the incidents of the _Mercuriale_, as well as of the king's visit to parliament. (Hist.

of the Huguenots, i. 54, etc.). Among other a.s.sertions altogether unwarranted by the evidence, he states that Henry, in order to entrap the unwary, "declared himself free from every kind of angry feeling against those counsellors who had adopted the new religion, and begged them all to speak their opinions freely," etc. (p. 55). If true, this would rob Du Bourg's course of half its heroism.]

[Footnote 704: "Whereas," wrote Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, "the Kinge's presence is very rare, and hathe seldome happened but upon somme great occasion; so I endevored myself (as much as I could) to learne the cause of their a.s.semble." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.]

[Footnote 705: Strangely enough, Mr. Smedley, History of the Reformed Religion in France, i. 87, note, following a careless annotator of De Thou, discovers an inaccuracy in the allusion where no inaccuracy exists. It was not to Ahab's _question_, but to Elijah's _retort_, that Du Faur made reference. See La Place, p. 13.]

[Footnote 706: La Place, Comm. de l'estat, etc., p. 13; Hist. eccles., i. 122; (Crespin, Gal. chret., ii. 303); De Thou, ii. 670. Felibien, Hist. de Paris, ii. 1066.]

[Footnote 707: La Place, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 708: Among them Paul de Foix, "who is cousin to the King of Navarre." Throkmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 23, 1559, Forbes i. 126.]

[Footnote 709: La Place, Com. de l'estat, etc., p. 14; Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II.; De Thou, ii. 671; Felibien, Hist. de Paris, ii.

1067; Vieilleville, ii. 405-406; Hist. eccles. i., 122-123. Even Anne de Montmorency was struck with Du Bourg's boldness, and exclaimed, "Vous faictes la bravade." Forbes, State Papers, i. 126.]