Of all the recommendations of the clergy at the States-General of 1615, only two were carried into effect by the Crown. These were the reinstatement of the Jesuits as public teachers, and the restoration of the Church establishment in Béarn. By a royal Ordonnance of February 15, 1618, the Jesuit fathers were authorized to re-open their college at Paris (the College de Clermont) for the delivery of lectures in the sciences and other branches of knowledge; and the Parliament was forbidden to entertain any appeal against this measure. The University accordingly forbore to appeal; but nevertheless proceeded to draw up a series of stringent regulations with a view to exclude the Jesuits from degrees and other privileges of the corporation. These provisions were summarily cancelled by an order of the Council of State.

Father Cotton, who ever since the restoration of the Jesuits had occupied the post of royal confessor, and had exercised a weighty influence both political and ecclesiastical, was removed from office in 1617, on the occasion of the rupture between Louis and the Queen Mother. His place was supplied by another member of the order. Father Arnoux, a man of at least equal ability, but of a bigoted and violent temper, who, in conjunction with the new favourite De Luynes, soon acquired a paramount ascendency over the feeble mind of Louis. Urged by their importunities, the king determined, in the summer of 1617, on taking immediate steps for the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in the Principality of Béarn, and restoring to the Church the property which had been confiscated for the benefit of the Calvinists by Jeanne d'Albret some fifty years before, by an edict of October 31, 1571. This point had been strenuously insisted on by the clergy ever since the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, of which indeed it formed one of the principal stipulations. Henry IV. had made several attempts to satisfy them; but he was embarrassed by habitual respect for the "fors," or constitutional liberties, of his native country, by one of which it was unlawful for the sovereign to annul anything that had once been enacted by the States of Béarn. Louis XIII was very differently situated from his father, and entertained no such scruples. He was deeply attached to the Catholic faith; and the daily representations made to him by those nearest his person convinced him that it was his duty no longer to tolerate the existing state of things in that part of his dominions. An Order of Council, dated June 25, 1617, directed that the exercise of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion should be resumed and maintained throughout the province of Béarn, and that the Catholic clergy should be put into possession of the temporalities; due provision being made at the same time for the ejected Protestant ministers, by a grant from the revenues of the Crown equal in amount to the emoluments which they surrendered. This mandate was received by the Béarnois with a general outburst of indignant opposition. The States assembled hastily, and declared that their immemorial rights and privileges had been violated. The Huguenots remonstrated at a great meeting of their preachers and deputies at Orthez; the Conseil souverain of Pau declined to register the edict; and such was the agitation that prevailed, that rebellion and civil war once more appeared imminent. De Luynes and the ultra-catholic party in the Council urged Louis to proceed to extremities against the exasperated Protestants; but the course of events in other quarters determined him for the present to an opposite policy. The movements of the Queen Mother Mary de Medici, who had been exiled from court at the time of the assassination of the Marechal d'Ancre in 1617, were such as to create considerable anxiety. The disaffected grandees—the Dukes of Epernon, Guise, and Mayenne, the Maréchal de Bouillon, and others—had flocked around her in her retirement at Blois, and were intriguing with eager animosity against the government. On the Eight of the 22nd of February, 1619, Mary contrived, with the assistance of Epernon, to escape from the chateau of Blois, and fled to Angouleme, where, supported by the factious nobles and their retainers, she occupied a formidable position. In this posture of affairs the Court deemed it wiser to postpone coercive measures against the Protestants of Béarn; the more so, inasmuch as the Huguenot leaders forbore at this conjuncture to embarrass the Government by openly taking part with the malcontents of Angouleme. Accordingly they received permission to hold a general assembly of their co-religionists at Loudun, in September of this year, for the purpose of preparing and presenting to the Crown a formal statement of their grievances. This synod, however, proved even more excited and turbulent than that at Orthez. It was demanded of the king, as a preliminary article to the general cahier, that the edict of restitution should be unconditionally withdrawn. So critical was the state of parties, that the Government durst not return a direct negative to this requisition; and, after much temporising and hesitation, a sort of compromise was entered into with the Protestant deputies at Loudun, through the intervention of the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Lesdiguières. In the meantime strenuous efforts were made to bring about a good understanding between Louis and his mother, and thus to frustrate the cabals of her party. Cardinal de Bérulle, who among his other talents was known to be a skilful diplomatist, was despatched to Angouleme to ascertain the queen's dispositions, and pave the way towards a reconciliation. Recourse was also had to the Bishop of Lufon, who was recalled from his banishment at Avignon and sent on the same errand to the temporary residence of his royal mistress. With considerable difficulty the terms of accommodation were at length agreed on. Mary recovered her independence, and obtained for herself the government of Anjou, together with lavish promises of honours and appointments for her friends; after which an interview took place between the king and his mother at Tours, and peace was apparently sealed. But the bad faith of De Luynes, who neglected to fulfil several of the most important stipulations of the treaty, soon produced a fresh train of discontents; and a far more alarming confederacy was organized, which the Grovernment found itself compelled to encounter by force. The hostilities were of brief duration, and in August, 1620, the insurgents were reduced to submission. The conditions granted to them were nearly identical with those of the year preceding; but Richelieu succeeded in carrying certain points of special advantage to himself, one of them being a promise from the king to recommend him to the Pope for promotion to the rank of Cardinal.

Matters being thus pacifically settled in the North, Louis turned his attention to the subjugation of the refractory Béarnais. He had now a powerful body of troops under arms; with these he marched to Bordeaux, and for the last time summoned the authorities at Pau to register the edict of "main-levée" in favour of the Catholic clergy. They remained obstinate in their refusal; whereupon the king, exclaiming, "II faut aller a eux!" took the road to Béarn at the head of his army. At these tidings the terrified magistrates hastily registered the edict; but it was now too late. Louis arrived next day within sight of Pau. His attendants desired instructions as to the ceremonial to be observed on his entrance; he replied that he would proceed first of all to the church, if there were any in the place, and if not, he would make his entry without any pomp or state at all, since it would ill become him to receive the honours of royalty in a spot where he had no means of offering his homage to God, from whom he held his dominions. On the 15th of October, 1620, Louis traversed the streets of Pau and took up his quarters at the ancient chateau, amid the sullen silence of the inhabitants. On the 17th he repaired to Navarreins, the strongest fortress in the province, where he superseded the Protestant governor and replaced him by a Catholic; he also caused mass to be celebrated in his presence, for the first time since the Catholic ritual had been abolished half a century before. Returning next day to Pau, Louis presided personally at the execution of his edicts for the re-establishment of the Church as it existed before the so-called Reformation. The churches were restored to the Catholics; the bishops and abbots of Béarn recovered their ancient privileges, their seats in the provincial legislature, their lands and other endowments; the alienated tithes were resumed by the parochial clergy. Finally, the "pays souverain" of Béarn, together with its dependencies of Basse Navarre, Andorra, and Donezan, were declared for ever re-united and incorporated with the crown and royal "domaine" of France. In consequence of this annexation, a new provincial parliament was instituted at Pau, of which Pierre de Marca, afterwards the eminent controversialist and Archbishop of Toulouse, was appointed the first President. De Marca, though at this time a young man of only six-and-twenty, was already thoroughly well versed in ecclesiastical law and Catholic antiquity. He now eagerly engaged in conferences with the Protestants of Béarn, and succeeded in effecting some remarkable conversions to the Church. The exertions of Father Joseph were rewarded by similar results. Father Cotton, too, was encouraged by the late revolution of affairs to undertake a journey to Pau, where he established a Jesuit college, and was instrumental in many other measures tending to the strengthening and consolidation of Catholic interests.

The vigorous exhibition of despotic authority in the case of Béarn threw the Protestants throughout the kingdom into a state of extraordinary irritation. A general assembly was convoked at La Rochelle, the capital of French Calvinism, in December, 1620, contrary to the commands of the king, and even to the advice of Duplessis-Mornay, and other chiefs of the party. Inflammatory harangues were made, and violent counsels prevailed. A memorial of grievances was adopted, which the king refused to receive unless the synod were first dissolved; the deputies, on their part, protested that they would not separate until they had obtained satisfaction. Convinced, by the concurrence of various causes, that another crisis was at hand in their struggle with the Ancient Church, the Reformers now made preparations for an armed insurrection. The assembly of La Rochelle declared itself en permanence, and issued a manifesto by which the whole country was parcelled out into eight circles or military governments. These were placed under the command of the great Huguenot nobles—the dukes of Rohan, Soubise, La Tremoille, and Chatillon, the Marquis de la Force, and the veteran Marshal Lesdiguières; the direction of the whole being entrusted to the Duke of Bouillon. But this organization was more formidable on paper than in reality; much division of opinion existed among the nominal commanders as to the wisdom and policy of the hostile movement. Bouillon declined the post of generalissimo, and remained neutral in his fortress of Sedan. Lesdiguières, who was already more than half a Catholic, not only refused his services to the Huguenots, but accepted a principal command in the royal army. The Duke of La Tremoille, a relative of Bouillon, followed the example of his uncle;—a course which was expressly recommended to him, according to one account, by Duplessis-Mornay himself. In short, it is manifest that the enterprise of the Protestants on this occasion was unwise, precipitate, and unjustifiable. Even admitting that they had good ground for complaining of systematic infractions of the Edict of Nantes, and other acts of oppression, their own interests would have been far better served at this moment by patience and moderation than by breaking out into open revolt. Stimulated by the example of their brethren in Grermany, who, under the leadership of the Elector Palatine, were desperately braving the whole strength of the Empire, the Huguenots assumed an attitude which almost compelled Louis to proceed to extremities against them as rebels and traitors. This was playing the game of their enemies. The Jesuits, and other zealots who possessed the ear of Louis, easily persuaded him that the time was come when he must vindicate his authority, once for all, against those who thus made religion a stalking-horse for disloyalty and armed rebellion. In point of fact, both the rising of the Huguenots, and the decisive measures of the court for its suppression, resulted from the manoeuvres of that great party which was labouring, at any cost, and often by indefensible means, to restore the supremacy of the Catholic Church throughout Europe.

As I do not profess to write the history of the Calvinist Separatists, nor to describe secular transactions except so far as they directly bear upon the fortunes of the Church, the reader will not expect from me more than a very slight outline of the events of the two campaigns of Louis XIII in the war of 1621 and 1622.

The king set out from Fontainebleau on the 29th of April, 1621, attended by the Duc de Luynes, who had just previously been advanced to the dignity of Constable of France. His march towards the disturbed districts was preceded by a proclamation, in which he assured the Huguenots that he was fully resolved to observe all the edicts issued in their favour both by his father and himself, and declared that, while rebels with arms in their hands would henceforth be treated as such, he took specially under his royal protection all of the reformed persuasion who should remain faithful in their allegiance to their sovereign. This was language well calculated to increase the symptoms of disunion which had already begun to manifest themselves among the ranks of the insurgents.

The first Huguenot town of which Louis took possession was Saumur, where Duplessis-Mornay, who had held the post of governor for upwards of thirty years, was deprived of his command under a promise to restore it within three months, which was never fulfilled. The Duke of Soubise retired before the royal army, and the districts bordering on the Loire, together with the whole of Poitou, submitted without resistance. St. Jean d'Angely was taken after a siege of three weeks, and lenient terms were granted to the inhabitants; the fortifications, however, were dismantled, and the town forfeited its municipal charter and other privileges. The towns of Guienne were reduced with little difficulty, with the exception of Clerac on the Lot, which was vigorously defended for twelve days. Here Louis ordered the public execution of four Protestants, one of them a minister, who had distinguished themselves by fomenting the revolt. But, on proceeding to lay siege to Montauban, the principal fortress of the Huguenots in the south, the royal forces experienced a decided check. The place was admirably defended by the Marquis de la Force and the Duke of Rohan, and three months were consumed in ineffectual efforts to subdue it. At length the ablest officers among the royalists pronounced it hopeless to persist, and Louis was compelled ignominiously to raise the siege. The Constable de Luynes, to whose incompetence this misfortune was in great measure attributed, shortly afterwards fell ill of a contagious disorder prevalent in the camp, which carried him off in a few days. The campaign now terminated, and the king returned to Paris in January.

The repulse of the royal arms before Montauban had the natural effect of encouraging the hopes and inflaming the fanatical ardour of the Huguenots. A general rising followed in Languedoc, the Cevennes, and Provence, and was marked by outrageous excesses on the part of the sectaries against the dominant religion. At Montpellier, the cathedral and every other Catholic church in the city was pillaged and destroyed; the clergy were driven away with violence and insult, and the excellent bishop, Pierre Fenouillet, made his escape at the imminent peril of his life. Similar acts of profanation were perpetrated throughout the district; many of the most beautiful specimens of the architectural taste of the middle ages perished under the hands of these ruthless Reformers.

Early in the spring of 1622 the Rochellois fitted out a considerable fleet of privateers, with which they blockaded the western coast, and the embouchures of the Loire and the Gironde, and committed great depredations on maritime commerce. The Duke of Soubise, at the same time, recommenced warlike operations in Poitou, and overran the country up to the gates of Nantes. On the 20th of March, 1622, the king once more took the field, and marched against Soubise. He attacked him at the Ile de Rié on the 15th of April, and inflicted on him a total and decisive defeat, his loss amounting to upwards of four thousand men. Flushed with victory, Louis now traversed without resistance the whole of Poitou and Saintonge, and, on entering Guienne, received the submission of two of the most distinguished Huguenot generals—the Marquises of La Force and Chatillon. They were not only pardoned unconditionally, but were presented besides with the baton of marshal. Some examples of severe reprisal were made, however, in the course of the royal progress; the little town of Négrepélisse in Quercy, where a detachment of the king's troops had been put to the sword during the winter, was sacked, and the entire population was indiscriminately butchered.

It was during the summer of 1622 that the aged Marshal Lesdiguières made his abjuration of Calvinism in the cathedral of Grenoble, and was received into the Catholic Church by the Archbishop of Embrun. Although the defection of such a personage was, doubtless, a mortifying blow to the Protestants, it can hardly have occasioned surprise. Throughout life Lesdiguières had been a lukewarm Huguenot; and it was well known that of late years he had become entirely alienated from the creed of the Reformers, and ready on the first favourable opportunity to renounce it openly. It was a suspicious circumstance, no doubt, that the marshal, on the very day of his recantation, received from the king the Constable's sword, which had for years been the object of his ambition. This, not unnaturally, exposed him to a storm of sarcastic reproaches from the party which he abandoned; his appointment was, in their view, the wages of apostasy—the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas sold his Lord. It must, however, in justice beremembered that Lesdiguières had made up his mind to the step which he finally adopted for a considerable period before he thus attained the highest dignity of his profession. It appears that his first impressions in favour of Catholicism were due to the powerful reasonings and exhortations of Father Cotton, whose sermons he continued to attend at different intervals for twenty years. He had also frequented the ministrations of S. François de Sales, when on two successive occasions, in the years 1617 and 1618, he preached during Lent at Grenoble; and had repeatedly sought instruction from that great prelate in private. The real reason why Lesdiguières neglected for so many years to obey the dictates of his conscience was an immoral connexion, which he lacked the firmness and courage to break off. His mistress, Marie Vignon, became his wife after the death of his first duchess; and the only obstacle to bis reconciliation with the Church being thus removed, he lost no time in carrying out his long-formed purpose.

Unquestionably Lesdiguières was not superior to the common weaknesses of humanity, and ambition was one of his besetting infirmities; but it would be unfair to attribute his conversion solely to motives of this sordid kind. So far as can be ascertained, his rejection of the doctrines of Luther and Calvin was sincere; and he seems to have returned with implicit confidence and satisfaction to the Church of his forefathers. Lesdiguières died at the age of eighty-four, in September, 1626.

Towards the end of August the royal army commenced the siege of Montpellier, which resisted for several weeks. But, meanwhile, negociations were proceeding between the Duke of Rohan and the Constable Lesdiguières. Manifold difficulties presented themselves, which were at length overcome, and on the 19th of October it was announced that peace had been definitively concluded. By the treaty of Montpellier a general amnesty was granted, and the king again confirmed the Edict of Nantes in its full extent; but, at the same time, the terms imposed upon the Huguenots were sufficiently humiliating. Their cautionary towns were forfeited, with the exception of La Rochelle and Montauban; Montpellier was to be dismantled, and its municipal officers henceforth nominated by the Crown; all new fortifications raised by the Huguenots were to be demolished; and though they were still permitted to retain their synods and "colloquies" for purely religious matters, they were interdicted from holding meetings for political purposes without the king's permission, under the penalties of high treason.

Thus this ill-advised movement enabled the Government to attack with fatal effect the material guarantees which the Calvinists had extorted by former successes, and by means of which they had rendered themselves so dangerous to the inde- pendence of the State. After this, their extinction as a political party was merely a question of time. A change of administration was at hand, which boded ominously for their interests. The anomaly of an imperium in imperio—a rival power established side by side with the monarchical authority, and possessing its own instruments of independent action—was wholly irreconcilable with the principles and genius of Richelieu. That great statesman accordingly made it his primary object, on succeeding to the helm of affairs, to put an end to the abnormal position occupied by the Huguenots, and to reduce them to the harmless level of a tolerated sect. It followed from this policy, that the Gallican Church recovered its legitimate status as the sole authorized teacher of the nation; though at the same time Richelieu discouraged religious persecution, and respected, for the most part, the individual rights of conscience.

An interval of more than two years elapsed after the death of the Constable de Luynes before the accession of Richelieu to supreme authority. His elevation to the Conclave took place on the 5th of September, 1622; having been long delayed by the jealousy of De Luynes, and by the personal antipathy with which he was regarded by the king. At this moment the persons who enjoyed the greatest influence at court were the Comte de Schomberg, superintendent of finance, the Marquis de Puisieux, Secretary of State, Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, and Marshal Bassompierre. They were all men of inferior ability, but they were closely united by one common object, namely, that of excluding the new cardinal from any share in the administration. Richelieu, although at this juncture he affected great moderation, and even sought to excuse himself, on the score of weak health, from engaging in any public employment, was well known to possess unbounded ambition, consummate talent, and inflexible stedfastness of purpose. The ministers, conscious of their own weakness, foresaw that if the doors of the council chamber were once more opened to him, the cardinal would eclipse all competitors, and monopolise the government. Nevertheless the force of circumstances, and the imperative requirements of the public interest, prevailed eventually against these hostile intrigues. The incapacity of his present advisers became manifest to Louis, who was by no means deficient in intelligence, though too timid to rely on the resources of his own mind in the great task of government. The Secretary Puisieux was dismissed in January, 1624, and his disgrace was shared by his father, the Chancellor de Sillery. Schomberg had been previously deprived of office; and the chief authority now passed into the hands of the Marquis de la Vieuville, Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld continuing to act as the nominal President of the Council. Vieuville found it necessary to strengthen his position by obtaining the support of the Queen Mother, who since her last reconciliation with Louis had again become a person of considerable importance. Mary made it a condition of her adhesion that her confidant Richelieu should be introduced into the royal council. Vieuville assented, and accordingly recommended the measure to the king. Louis, who had accurately divined the Cardinal's character, resisted for several weeks all solicitations in his favour. At length he yielded, contrary to his private inclination, but in accordance, we may well believe, with his sense both of duty and of interest on public grounds.

On the 26th of April, 1624, the Cardinal took his seat for the second time as a member of the Council of State; a place which he had the address to retain, without any serious vicissitudes of fortune or diminution of influence, throughout his life. He immediately resigned his bishopric of Lupon, feeling that he could no longer fulfil the obligation of residence; and his successor in the see was consecrated in June, 1624.

From the first moment, the master spirit of the new minister asserted its supremacy, and Louis ere long resigned himself to his inevitable dominion. Richelieu inaugurated his reign by claiming for himself, as a prince of the Church, the right of precedence over all the great officers of the Crown, and over all other members of the Council except the princes of the blood royal. Vieuville, having served the Cardinal's purposes, was driven from office on the first pretext, and was imprisoned in the chateau of Amboise; and Richelieu at once succeeded to the undisputed control of the vessel of the State.

It soon appeared that the Huguenots had gained no accession of wisdom by the failure of their recent insurrection. Several of the provisions of the treaty of Montpellier had been evaded by the Crown. Fort Louis, a royal garrison which menaced La Rochelle, had not been demolished according to promise. Obstacles had been thrown in the way of the meeting of the reformed synods and consistories; the civil privileges guaranteed by the Edict of Nantes had been violated by the provincial authorities; cases of gross partiality and injustice had occurred in the administration of the law by the parliament. On these grounds the sectaries hazarded another revolt in 1625, at a moment when large bodies of the king's troops had been despatched on foreign expeditions. The enterprise was conducted by the two brothers Rohan and Soubise with their usual gallantry, the former commanding by land, the latter by sea. The details of the operations belong to the civil liistory of the time. Soubise obtained some successes, but suffered a total defeat off the Isle of Rhe, with the loss of almost his whole fleet; after which the general assembly of the Protestants sent deputies to treat with the Government for conditions of peace. The king expressed himself willing to grant terms of reconciliation to the Protestants of Languedoc, but was not disposed to extend his clemency to those inveterate rebels the Rochellois. The deputies represented that it was essential to include in any pacific arrangement both La Rochelle and the Duke of Soubise, whom they entitled "grand Admiral of the Protestant churches." This point was at length conceded through the influence of Richelieu, who felt that, in order to carry out successfully his schemes of foreign policy, it was absolutely necessary to gain a respite from the treasonable agitation which distracted France at home. He persuaded Louis, therefore, to grant peace once more to his Protestant subjects without exception; and that upon more favourable terms than they had any just reason to expect. They were left in possession of most of their former privileges; and the king, though he declined to dismantle Fort Louis, engaged that, so long as the citizens of La Rochelle behaved peaceably and loyally, their commerce should not be in any way obstructed by the royal garrison. A special commissioner was to reside at La Rochelle during the king's pleasure to superintend the execution of the articles of the treaty.

The motives of Richelieu in dealing thus leniently with the heretics were misunderstood, or purposely misrepresented, by zealous Catholics both at home and abroad. "My design," replied the Cardinal to the remonstrances of the Papal nuncio Spada, "is to crush the Huguenots completely and for ever; but before doing so, I shall be compelled to scandalise the world once more. Just now they are reviling me at Rome as a heretic; the day will come when they will be more ready to canonise me as a saint." He had already astonished Europe by siding with the Protestants of the Grisons against the House of Austria, and even against the forces of the Pope himself; and by superficial or prejudiced observers the present pacification with the Rocliellois was viewed as a repetition of the same strange policy. When the treaty was signed, on the 5th of February, 1626, Richelieu, accompanied by his colleague Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, retired from the council chamber, in order to avoid the appearance of participating in an act of grace to heretics. But in spite of this precaution, the ultra- Catholic bigots assailed the minister with every kind of libellous vituperation; he was held up to ridicule as "the Cardinal of La Rochelle," "the patriarch of the Atheists," "the Calvinist Pontiff." Two of the satires launched against his seemingly anti-Catholic proceedings on this occasion were of so dangerous a tendency, that the cardinal deemed it necessary to bring them under the notice of the Assembly of the clergy then in session at Paris. They were anonymous publications, of which the first was entitled 'Mysteria politica'; the second, 'Admonitio ad regem Christianissimum Ludovicum XIII.' They were printed in Italy, and were attributed to the Jesuits Eudaemon-Jean, Garasse, and Keller. "The King of France," the author asserted, "was inconsistent with himself; with one hand he made war upon the heretics at home, while with the other he supported them against the Catholics abroad. He had succoured the States General of Holland; he was helping to reinstate a heretic Elector lawfully deprived of his dignity; he had leagued himself with the Protestants of the Grisons against the Catholics of the Valteline." The pamphleteers proceeded to discuss in detail various questions of a grossly seditious character; for example, whether it was not the duty of the States-General of France to point out to the king that his alliances with heretics were unbecoming and criminal; whether Louis had not by such conduct incurred the penalty of excommunication; whether his evil advisers are not equally liable to ecclesiastical censure; whether the king ought not to be restrained by force from scandalising the Christian world by making war upon Catholics; whether, under the present circumstances of the kingdom, it was not the duty of Frenchmen to elect a prince capable of effectually defending the Catholic religion, and if so, where such a prince was to be found. In conclusion, the king was denounced as an enemy of the Church, against whom the Pope ought forthwith to unsheath the sword of St. Peter, and thus authorize other princes to declare war against him in the common cause of Christendom. "God had permitted his father Henry IV to be assassinated, as a punishfor having attempted to put two heretic princes into possession of the duchies of Cleves and Juliers. The cause which the House of Austria had espoused in this quarrel was none other than the cause of God himself. To make war upon sovereigns who were defending the Catholic religion was to act in open opposition to the Divine will,—to "fight against God."

Every page of the work abounded with virulent abuse of Richelieu, as the firebrand of Europe, the projector of the "English marriage," and the author of the unnatural league between France and anti-Catholic powers. These extravagant productions were publicly burnt at Paris, by order of the Lieutenant Civil, on the 30th of October, 1625 ; and one of them, the "Admonitio," was censured, without difficulty, by the Sorbonne on the following 26th of November. But in the ecclesiastical assembly matters took a different turn. The Gallicans were, at this time, a powerful party, anxious to stand well with the Court, and well disposed towards the ministry of Richelieu. But the Ultramontane section was not less numerously represented in the Synod; and a question of this nature, involving as it did the crucial points at issue between the two schools, was certain to provoke an animated contest.

The Bishop of Chartres, Leonor d'Etampes, a man of high reputation both for character and learning, and a personal friend of Richelieu, was commissioned to draw up a report upon the two libellous treatises. That prelate accordingly presented to the Assembly, on the 13th of December, an elaborate "Declaration," in which he enlarged on the presumption, insolence, and wicked purposes of the anonymous pamphleteers; asserted, in the loftiest language, the Divine authority of kings, and the consequent necessity of unqualified passive obedience on the part of subjects; defended the policy of the Government both at home and abroad; and extolled, with warm admiration, the genius and virtues of Richelieu.

This document was approved, and ordered to be printed in French and Latin, and the Synod immediately afterwards separated. But the Ultramontanes were by no means disposed to submit tamely to such a damaging censure of their favourite dogmas; and, with the assistance of the Nuncio Spada, they set every available engine in motion to procure the withdrawal or disavowal of the report. In this they were so far successful that, at a private meeting under the presidency of Cardinal de la Valette, Archbishop of Toulouse, a second report was adopted, condemning the libel in general terms, but avoiding all mention of theological points in dispute between the Gallicans and the Roman curia. The Parliament of Paris, on the first information of this clerical stratagem, interposed, forbidding the publication of any other manifesto on the subject than that sanctioned by the Assembly on the 13th of December. In the teeth of this injunction, the dissentients, including two cardinals, eight archbishops, and thirty-two bishops, with five deputies of the second order, assembled at the Abbey of St. Genevieve, and signed an act repudiating the report of the Bishop of Chartres, on the ground that the Assembly had never deliberated on its contents. They also petitioned the king to annul the prohibitory decree of the Parliament. The magistrates rejoined by another arret, declaring the proceedings of the prelates illegal, null, and void, forbidding future meetings of the clergy for any similar purpose, and ordering the archbishops and bishops to repair to their dioceses within fifteen days, under pain of forfeiting their temporalities.

It must be confessed that the conduct of the French prelates on this occasion was strangely undignified and inconsistent. After solemnly expressing their assent, while constitutionally assembled in Synod, to the declaration prepared by their brother of Chartres, they are suddenly converted to an opposite view of the case, revoke their own act, and put forth a different statement, from which all mention of the grounds of the former censure is carefully excluded. Even the Bishop of Chartres himself came forward, and announced that he accepted the disavowal of the original declaration of which he was the author, on condition that the other prelates and deputies would subscribe the three following propositions:—"That no cause whatsoever can justify subjects iu revolting against their lawful sovereign"; " That no one upon earth has power to dispense or absolve them from their oath of allegiance"; and "That no power exists which can deprive a monarch of his throne."

The Jesuit D'Avrigny endeavours to dispose of the difficulty by alleging that the sentence first published was unauthorized and surreptitious; that the Parliament, whose sentiments it expressed, imposed it upon the world as genuine; and that the second document, disowning the former, was the only one that set forth authentically the judgment of the French clergy upon the work before them. But this is altogether improbable. In the first place, the report of the Bishop of Chartres was entered upon the official register of the acts of the Assembly; and in the next, it is scarcely credible that, in a case of such general notoriety, any document professing to emanate from the assembled cardinals, prelates, and clergy of the Church could have been put into circulation in Paris, and received as such, unless it had been issued with the sanction of that body. The true solution is to be found, in all probability, in the immense influence wielded by the Jesuits, and in their ceaseless energy and marvellous dexterity in all cases where the interests of the Order were at stake.

Meanwhile two points of considerable importance are illustrated by this transaction. It appears, first, that a great amount of arbitrary pressure was exercised at this period on the ecclesiastical Hynod, both by the executive Government and by the Courts of Parliament. And again, it is plain that a reaction had taken place among the clergy, with reference to the Ultramontane doctrines, since the meeting of the States-General in 1614. During that interval of twelve years the principles of Gallicanism had been steadily gaining ground. Du Perrou, the champion of the opposite system, had been removed by death in 1618, and had left no one of equal calibre to supply his place. De Bérulle, however able, zealous, and influential in his own sphere, was not fitted by nature for a party leader. Richelieu, who was now master of the situation, had just exhibited the spectacle of a cardinal actively sympathising with heretics in declared antagonism to the Pope. Under these circumstances, a decided impulse was given to the development of that system of national Catholicism, as distinguished from servile dependence on the Papacy, which afterwards obtained so widely in France;—the system which culminated in the memorable Declaration of the Gallican clergy of 1682.

The clergy protested vehemently against the decree of the Parliament on the 3rd of March, by which they were admonished to close their debates and retire from Paris. They declared that the magistrates had no authority over the Church lawfully represented in Synod; that it was both the right and the duty of the prelates to meet in deliberation on the affairs of religion as often as occasion might require; that at present they were assembled for the purpose of obtaining, if possible, the suppression of the arrets complained of, and in order to dissuade the public from attaching any weight to them, to the prejudice of their souls and of the respect due to religion. This manifesto was ordered to be burnt by the public executioner, and the Archbishop of Auch and the Bishop of Angers were summoned to the bar of the Parliament to answer for their conduct. It was now apprehended that a serious collision would ensue between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Richelieu thought it time to interfere; and on the 26th of March the king, by his advice, evoked the whole affair to his own cognizance. The Parliament, notwithstanding this, repeated their summons to the two prelates to appear before the Court; upon which the bishops demanded an audience of the king, in order to remonstrate against this abuse of power. This was granted, and the day for receiving them was fixed; but before it arrived the magistrates signified their submission to the Order of Council by which the cause was evoked to the king's person. The conflict was thus cut short, and no further proceedings were taken on either side.

Before the excitement caused by these incidents had subsided, the Ultramontane faction came into still more serious collision with the civil authorities in consequence of a work published at Rome by a Jesuit named Antonio Santarelli, entitled De Haeresi, Schismate, Apostasia, sollicitatione in Sacramento poenitenciae, et de potestate summi Pontificis in his delictis puniendis. The book appeared under the sanction of the Papal Government, and of Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits. A few copies having been received by a bookseller in Paris, it fell into the hands of certain fathers of the Order, who, perceiving the dangerous nature of the author's views, immediately notified their apprehensions to Father Cotton, their provincial. Cotton hastened to secure the remaining copies; but, before this could be done, one of them had been inspected by a vigilant doctor of the Sorbonne, who made copious extracts from the volume, and took care that they were widely circulated. The authorities of the Parliament sounded the alarm; a copy of Santarelli's treatise was procured from Lyons, and, being submitted to the Syndic of the Sorbonne and the Advocate-General Servin, proved to abound in matter for serious animadversion.

Santarelli, as an exponent of Ultramontanism, seems to have indulged in a more exaggerated tone than any of his predecessors. According to him, the judgment of the Pope is identical with that of God himself; as Vicar of Christ, he has authority to punish temporal princes for grave dereliction of duty, even to the extent, if he thinks fit, of depriving them of their dominions; he is the sole depository of supreme authority on earth; monarchs are his lieutenants, holding a delegated power, which for just reason may at any time be revoked by him.

No mediaeval Hildebrand, Innocent, or Boniface, could have exalted the prerogatives of the Holy See to a more monstrous pitch. The case came on for hearing before the Parliament of Paris on the 13th of March, 1626. On this day Louis XIII. held a "bed of justice" for the registration of some edicts, and was present at the scene which followed.

The Advocate-General, at the very moment when he rose to address the Court for the prosecution, was seized with a fit of apoplexy, and expired almost instantaneously. This tragical event was not allowed to interrupt the proceedings. Servin was replaced by Omer Talon, a man of equal ability, and of more moderate temper, whose speech against the inculpated Order created intense sensation. Under the influence of these feelings the Court adjudged Santarelli's book to be burned by the hangman on the Place de Grève; after which they proceeded to deliberate whether further penal measures were not required by the occasion; and it was proposed to interdict the Jesuits from officiating in the pulpit and the confessional, to close their College de Clermont, and even to expel them for the second time from France. None of these meditated penalties, however, were inflicted. Whether the magistrates, when their indignation had somewhat cooled, felt that a milder course would meet the emergency; or whether the friends of the Order at court found means to interest the king in their behalf; or again (which is most probable), whether the Cardinalminister himself intimated that, although resolved to maintain the supremacy of the Crown, he could not sanction persecution; certain it is that the Jesuits were treated with more clemency than might have been expected. The Parliament contented itself with ordering Father Cotton and his colleagues to appear at the Palais de Justice for examination. They accordingly repaired thither on the day named; where their bearing—modest and submissive, yet withal composed and manly—seems to have conciliated the sympathy of the audience. They were severely interrogated by the first President de Verdun, after which they were required to sign the four following propositions:

—1. "The king holds his crown and kingdom only from God and his sword."

2. " The Pope has no authority, either coercive or directive, over temporal sovereigns."

3. "The king cannot in any case be excommunicated personally."

4, "The Pope has no power to release subjects from their oath of allegiance, nor to place the kingdom under an interdict for any cause whatever."

Father Cotton, though at this time he was afflicted with a mortal malady, had sufiicient self-command and tact to reply to this demand, that he and his brethren would willingly sign the propositions, provided the Sorbonne and the Assembly of the clergy then sitting would subscribe them likewise; but that it was not their province to dictate terms to their superiors.

The response was embarrassing; for it was notorious that divisions existed both in the Sorbonne and among the clergy with respect to the doctrines which these articles involved. After some consultation, the Court was on the point of ordering the two leading Jesuits to be arrested, when the first President adjourned the decision to the following Monday; and the party made such good use of the breathingtime thus granted them, that Richelieu at last promised that proceedings against them should be dropped, if they would sign a written agreement to adhere to the censure which, the Sorbonne and the clergy might pass upon the work of Santarelli, and to support, with, regard to its subject matter, the sentiments professed by the Church of France, the Faculty of Theology at Paris, and the Universities of the kingdom. To this the Jesuits assented without difficulty; having done the same thing, as the reader may remember, on a former occasion. With the aid of certain casuistical refinements, they could always elude tbe obligation of any undertaking which it might prove inconvenient or disagreeable to fulfil.

Father Cotton breathed his last on the day after this pacific compromise had been arranged between the French Government and the representatives of his Order. Although his health had been for some time failing, there is no doubt that his end was hastened by the anxiety he had undergone during the progress of this harassing affair. By way of some reparation, and in testimony of respect for his memory, the Arch- bishop of Paris officiated at the funeral, and pronounced the absolution; and Richelieu himself afterwards visited his tomb, where he remained for some time absorbed in prayer.

When the censure of Santarelli came under the consideration of the Theological Faculty, the doctors found it exceedingly difficult to arrive at a decision. The question was long and vehemently debated by the antagonist parties—the "Duvallistes," as they were now designated, from their leader Andre Duval, and the "Richeristes," so called from their sympathy with the deposed Syndic Edmond Richer.

There seems to have been a general feeling that censure in some shape was required; but it was impossible to agree upon the terms. A decree was at length passed condemning the doctrine of Santarelli as "novel, false, erroneous, and contrary to the Word of God; as exposing the dignity of the Sovereign Pontiff to public odium, derogating from the authority of kings, subversive of public peace, and tending to encourage faction, rebellion, sedition, and murderous attempts upon the life of princes."

The minority, however, headed by Duval, refused to accept this decision, and strained every nerve to obtain some modification or retrenchment of the terms employed. The question was agitated at many successive meetings with extreme irritation on both sides. The patience of Richelieu was at length exhausted, and he interposed in his usual high-handed style. On the 13th of February, 1627, a royal ordinance forbad the Faculty to take any further proceedings with regard to Santarelli's book, or to publish any report of their deliberations on the subject without the king's permission.

The Parliament, in defiance of this command, insisted that the sentence passed by the Sorboune should be communicated for registration in their archives, and took other steps for prolonging the contest. The consequence was a peremptory order of Council, enjoining the magistrates to interfere no further in an affair which was beyond their cognizance. The king added that, in order to satisfy all parties, he had resolved to appoint a commission of Cardinals and prelates, to settle the definite terms in which the censure of the "detestable and pernicious doctrine" broached by Santarelli should be expressed. This promise, it need scarcely be said, his Majesty had no intention to fulfil. The commission was never issued; but the expedient served its purpose, in terminating, for the time being, a tedious and exasperating controversy, with the further advantage of leaving neither one side nor the other in a position to claim the victory.

The insurrection of the Huguenots in 1627-8 gave Richelieu a fair opportunity of finally uprooting their political power, and destroying the dangerous anomaly which the age of the Reformation had established in the bosom of the State. Unfortunately for French Protestantism, it had become identified in public opinion with disloyalty and rebellion. It cannot be denied that Calvinism has a certain native antipathy to royalty, and an equally strong affinity to democracy; and this connexion had been exemplified in France with such disastrous results, that the cause of the Reformers no longer commanded any amount of national sympathy. It was essential to Richelieu to re-establish tranquillity within the kingdom, in order to have his hands free for prosecuting his schemes of external aggrandisement. The national mind, disgusted with interminable "Wars of Religion," and re-acting strongly towards Catholicism, concurred with the minister to a considerable extent; so that although there were those, even among Catholics, who disapproved his policy, he was willingly and warmly supported when, in August, 1627, he undertook the siege of the Huguenot metropolis La Rochelle.

It was one of those enterprises which form a turning-point in the history of nations. "Many a time," says Richelieu himself, in one of his theological works, "many a time, while I was residing quietly as bishop in the neighbouring town of Lupon, did I meditate on the possibility of recovering La Rochelle to the obedience of the king, and on the means to be employed for the purpose. The idea passed through my mind in those days like a dream or shadowy imagination. But God having ordained that what I then regarded as a chimera should be taken in hand as a serious reality, I employed myself during the siege in gaining converts from heresy by force of reason and argument, while the king was transforming rebels into loyal subjects by the valour of his arms."

It is true that the Cardinal, as became his character, took measures for giving to the siege of La Rochelle the aspect of an ecclesiastical, as well as a military, undertaking. He filled the royal camp with a welldisciplined array of priests, monks, and missionary preachers; and among those who distinguished themselves by their energy and success in the campaign, we find the names of the Bishop of Maillezais (Henri de Sourdis, afterwards Archbishop of Bordeaux), the Bishop of Mende, the Bishop of Nimes, the Abbé de Marsillac, and the redoubtable Capuchin Father Joseph. Richelieu himself held frequent conferences with the Duc de la Tremoille, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the return of that nobleman to the Catholic Church. His son Louis Maurice de la Tremoille, Comte de Laval, was converted soon afterwards; he not only abjured Protestantism, but entered into holy orders, took the monastic vows in the Abbey of Charroux, and passed the rest of his life in the practice of austere piety. Nevertheless the Cardinal by no means confined himself on this great occasion to the peaceful duties which best accorded with his profession. He presided every day at the council of war; and in his position of Lieutenant-General of Aunis, Poitou, and Saintonge, he even discharged the functions of Commander-in-Chief in the absence of the king.

The Rochellois, after resisting obstinately for fourteen months, were at length compelled to capitulate on the 28th of October, 1628; when the king granted them an amnesty for past offences, the enjoyment of their property, and the free exercise of their religion in a specified part of the city.

On the 1st of November Louis made his triumphant entry into La Rochelle, and Mass was celebrated by Richelieu and the Archbishop of Bordeaux at the Church of Ste. Marguerite, which had previously undergone the ceremony of "reconciliation." It was announced by proclamation that this church would shortly be converted into a cathedral; the nearest episcopal see, that of Maillezais, being transferred to La Rochelle under the sanction of the Pope. This was effected by a bull of Innocent X, dated May 4, 1648. All the churches of the "Pays d'Aunis," with the ecclesiastical property attached to them, were ordered to be restored to the Catholic clergy. The city forfeited its municipal charter and privileges ; and it was provided that no stranger or foreigner, no one professing the "pretended Reformed religion," or any other religion than the Catholic, should hereafter be permitted to settle there as a domiciled inhabitant. Finally, the Rochellois were to erect a cross in the principal square, with an inscription recording the reduction of the city ; and every year, on the 1st of November, a solemn general procession was to be made in thanksgiving for this signal mercy.

In the course of the following year, after the submission of the Duke of Rohan, who had prolonged hostilities in Languedoc, a definitive pacification was concluded with the Huguenots by the "Edict of grace," which was promulgated at Nimes in July, 1629. This act deprived the party of its last vestige of independence. The fortifications of all their cautionary towns, which for so long a course of years had formed their rallying points and means of self-defence, were to be forwith destroyed, and hostages were to remain in the king's hands until this should be accomplished. In other respects the conditions of the edict wore an air of moderation and clemency. The Catholic religion was to be everywhere restored, and recognized as that of the State; and the Huguenots were to make restitution of all ecclesiastical property which they had appropriated during the wars; but, on the other hand, the unmolested exercise of their religion was guaranteed to them, they were amnestied for the past, and they preserved all property lawfully belonging to them. The Cardinal, on proceeding to Toulouse, met with an enthusiastic reception from the population of that town, and was complimented in flattering terms, not only by the magistrates, but even by the Huguenot ministers. He replied to a deputation from the latter body, that his station precluded him from receiving them as representatives of a Church, but that he should always be happy to welcome them as men of science and letters; that he would endeavour to prove on all occasions that the difference of religion should not prevent his rendering them every service in his power; that he wished to make no distinction among the king's subjects except on the ground of loyalty, which he hoped would henceforth be equally manifested in both communions; it being the king's desire to place all classes of his people on an equal footing of confidence and favour.

Although the success of this last and decisive campaign against the heretics must doubtless be ascribed in the main to the skill and energy of Richelieu, there is reason to believe that, both as to the original design and its execution, he owed much to a brother churchman of a very different spirit, namely, Cardinal de Bérulle. De Bérulle had entertained for years the strongest conviction of the necessity of annihilating the power of the Calvinists, which he regarded as the essential cause of the evils which for sixty-four years past had afflicted France. It was his influence in the Council of State that finally determined the king to besiege La Eochelle; contrary, in the first instance, to the advice of Richelieu, who was apprehensive of a failure, and also hesitated to commit himself to measures which might embroil France with the Protestant powers of Europe.

Such considerations had no weight with the enthusiastic De Bérulle, who believed on this occasion, as indeed he did on most others, that he was acting under a special inspiration from above. In the midst of no common difficulties and discouragements, he maintained a confident anticipation of success in the end, and exhorted all around him to await patiently and stedfastly God's appointed time. Richelieu could not refrain from occasionally asking his simple-hearted colleague, with half-contemptuous irony, to let him know the precise moment when La Rochelle would make its submission to his Majesty's arms. De Bérulle replied, with the utmost seriousness, "I have no positive intelligence on this head, but I have my own senti- ments; and since you require it, I am bound to impart them to you. I regard La Rochelle as already secured to the king; and I trust that the event is not far distant. I do not expect it from the dyke which has been thrown across the harbour, nor from the blockade by land; but from some sudden and unforeseen operation. Yet in matters of this kind one ought to be extremely reserved both in judging and speaking, and to bear in mind that saying of our Lord to his Apostles, 'It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power.' These words teach us to fall back into our own nothingness; but they do not oblige us to desist from prayer. I therefore beseech God importunately to shorten the days. It is for the sake of our country that I offer up these prayers to heaven; and I entreat your Eminence not to thwart them."

De Bérulle, when these anxious petitions had at length been granted, failed not to pay his vows of thanksgiving in the church of St. Marguerite at La Rochelle ; and caused a painting by the celebrated Le Sueur, representing the Nativity, to be placed over the high altar, the spot where he had been visited with that mysterious foreshadowing which the late events had so completely verified.

De Bérulle lived to witness the final pacification with the Huguenots, but was almost immediately afterwards removed from his career of earthly labour. He expired suddenly at the Oratorian College in the Rue St. Honoré at Paris, on the 2nd of October, 1629. The incurable jealousy of Richelieu's nature had latterly made De Bérulle odious to him; and a suspicion arose that his death was attributable, in some shape or degree, to the minister's agency. Insinuations of this kind were characteristic of the age, and unfortunately were often substantiated by facts; but in this instance there is no tittle of evidence to clothe the fiction with any semblance of reality.