CHAPTER XXI.

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE

 

THE peace of Câteau-Cambrésis opens a new era in the history of Europe. That treaty must be regarded as a conspiracy of the French and Spanish Kings against the spirit of the age; for though it contained no formal article for the suppression of Protestantism, and of those ideas of civil and religious liberty which it had inspired, yet it is notorious that in the antecedent negotiations the growth of the Reformation was alleged as an argument for the necessity of peace. The two leading powers having thus combined to maintain with the sword the tenets of Rome, the Protestants were driven to make common cause together; and Europe became divided into two hostile camps, distinguished by their modes of faith. Hence the Reformation necessarily assumed more and more of a political character : civil grievances were associated with those of religion; intestine wars broke out in France and the Netherlands; and Protestant England, to avert the subjugation threatened by the great Papal conspiracy, and the attempt to depose Elizabeth and place the Queen of Scots upon the throne, lent her aid to the insurgents in both those countries. Thus, during the latter half of the sixteenth century, there was little political action unconnected more or less directly with religion. The great wars, if not the national jealousies, which had marked its earlier period, almost entirely ceased. France, the common disturber of the peace of Europe, was occupied with her domestic broils; while Germany, by the severance of the Empire from Spain, and by its comparative freedom from the attacks of the Turks after the death of Solyman, enjoyed a long period of unwonted tranquility. Spain, the great leader of the Catholic cause, and England, the champion of Protestantism, seemed to be the only powers capable of vigorous action abroad; but at that time, and till after the destruction of the Spanish Armada, it would have appeared ridiculous to name the two countries in the same breath. During the life of Philip II, Spain remained, in opinion at least, the dominant power in Europe, and the idea entertained in England of its might is shown by the cautious policy of Elizabeth. The decline of Spain had, indeed, already begun in the reign of Charles V; but she still possessed her far-famed infantry, and the prestige of her vast possessions and reputed enormous wealth. Her strength, half fact, half phantom, was wielded by Philip II in a spirit partaking of a monkish inquisitor and a government clerk : assiduous at the desk from morning till night, diligent and serious, but without a spark of talent. But as Spain was engaged and crippled by the revolt of the Netherlands, while Elizabeth's policy was mostly defensive, there was little general European action, and many of the following chapters will be chiefly occupied with the civil wars of France and the Low Countries; movements, however, which differ vastly in importance. For while the struggle in France neither extended beyond the limits of that country nor produced any lasting effect, the revolt in the Netherlands and the establishment of the Dutch Republic resulted in changing the face of Europe, by introducing among its States another and a most important Protestant power.

The dissatisfaction with the treaty of Câteau-Cambrésis, by which the unconquered garrisons of sixty fortresses were to lay down their arms, was universal in France, Montmorenci and St. André were unmercifully abused; France, it was said, had to pay more dearly for their ransom than for that of Francis I. But though the treaty was denounced as the work of an ambitious minister and an artful mistress, Henry II ratified it, and faithfully performed all its articles. The Duke of Savoy proceeded to Paris to celebrate his marriage with the King’s sister, and the Duke of Alva to wed his daughter Elizabeth, by proxy, for his master, Philip. Yet at this very moment events were passing which were to cause nearly half a century of civil warfare.

The earlier reformers in France were Lutherans; but the French reformers had now received a new impulse and a better organization from their own countryman, Calvin: whose doctrines, expressed with vigor and precision in their own language, as well as in Latin, had also recommended themselves to the French mind by their logical clearness and practical spirit, and had thus easily supplanted those of Luther. The churches of the French Reformation had been organized on the model of that of Geneva, to which their eyes were directed as to the New Jerusalem; and Calvin’s rescripts thence had with them the same force as the Papal bulls with the Roman Catholics. Calvinism had spread into the greater part of France, and especially in the provinces of Brittany, Normandy, Languedoc, Gascony, Poitou, Touraine, Provence, and Dauphiné. Its converts belonged chiefly to the higher ranks, including many of the clergy, monks, nuns, and even bishops; and the Catholic churches seemed almost deserted, except by the lowest classes.

The boldness of the Calvinists had increased with their numbers. In 1557 they had ventured to assemble in open day in the Pré-aux-Clercs, the fashionable promenade of the Parisians, where they sung Psalms which had been versified by Marot, and set to the music of Guillaume Franc, by Louis Bourgeois, and by Claude Goudimel, the master of Palestrina. Even Antony of Navarre and his Queen had countenanced these meetings with their presence.

Henry II had viewed the progress of the Reformation with alarm, and had endeavored to repress it by persecution; in which he was assisted by the fanaticism of the populace, excited by the preaching of the friars and the calumnies circulated against the Calvinists. The year 1553 was rendered remarkable by the number of its martyrs. The same year witnessed the intolerance of Calvin himself; and Michael Servetus perished in the flames for having asserted his Unitarian doctrines, with too much talent and too much boldness, against the Genevese Reformer. In 1555 the King, at the instigation of the Cardinal of Lorraine, had endeavored to revive the ancient Inquisition in all its terrors; but the Parliament of Paris remonstrated.

In the spring of 1557, while the Duke of Guise was pursuing his successes in Italy, the Pope was solicited to establish the Spanish and Roman Inquisition in France; Paul consented, and issued a bull to that effect, which by a royal edict given at Compiegne, July 24th, was ordered to be registered. By this instrument the three Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Châtillon, the first of whom had been the prime mover in the matter, were appointed Grand Inquisitors. The Parliament again refused to register the edict. Its opposition, however, was not dictated by humanity, but by the fear of being supplanted in its jurisdiction by the clergy; and, influenced by this fear, it showed itself as relentless as any Inquisition, and sanctioned some persecutions. The processes against heretics in the Parliament were conducted, according to circumstances, by two different chambers, the Grand’ Chambre, and that called the Tournelle; the latter of which was subordinate, and did not act with much vigor; while the Grand’ Chambre, or principal chamber, from the numerous victims whom it consigned to the flames, obtained the name of the Chambre Ardente, or Burning Chamber.

After the peace of Câteau-Cambrésis, which released the King from the necessity of courting the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland and the German Lutheran Princes, Henry II resolved to render persecution more vigorous and consistent in his own dominions, by compelling the Parliament to accept the Pope's bull for the establishment of the Inquisition. The Reformed Church in France, in spite of the renewed persecutions to which it was subjected, had continued to flourish and increase. In May, 1559, it held its first general synod at Paris, and established itself as a great religious republic, by drawing up a confession of faith and publishing regulations for ecclesiastical discipline. A crisis had thus arrived when a decisive step seemed indispensable. The King summoned the Parliament to enforce a strict execution of the royal edicts. This matter was brought before them by the Procureur-général in a Mercuriale, and gave rise to a long and animated debate, in which several of the members expressed themselves with dignity and freedom. When the different judicial bodies were thus assembled together, the voice of mercy prevailed; the rigor of the Grand’ Chambre was condemned, and the question now lay between mitigated penalties and complete acquittal.

In this state of things Henry II unexpectedly appeared in the Parliament (June 10th), accompanied by several princes of the Houses of Bourbon and Guise. He told the members that having concluded a peace, and cemented it by the marriages of his sister and daughter, he meant now to proceed to the repression of heresy; he knew, he said, that they were then discussing the subject, and he invited them to continue the debate in his presence. Many of the members, and especially Du Bourg and Du Faur, expressed themselves with great boldness. Du Faur concluded an eloquent denunciation of the abuses of Rome by exclaiming : “We must know who those are who disturb the Church, lest' we should have to say as Elijah the Tishbite said to King Ahab, 'It is thou that troublest Israel'.” At these speeches the King could not contain his anger. He dispatched the Constable to seize with his own hand the two counselors on their benches. Five other Calvinist counselors were arrested by the captain of the guard, and all were sent to the Bastille. This scene, which forcibly recalls to mind the attempted seizure of the five members by Charles I in the English Parliament, may also, like that act, be regarded as inaugurating the civil wars which ensued. In vain the Protestant synod, still sitting at Paris, interceded for the prisoners. The King, setting at nought the privileges of the Parliament, appointed a special commission for their trial, and had the brutality to declare that he would see with his own eyes the burning of Du Bourg. But his own unexpected death deprived him of this spectacle, though it afterwards took place.

DEATH OF HENRY II, 1559

On the 20th of June the marriage of Mademoiselle Elizabeth with the Catholic king was celebrated, and on the 29th the contract was signed for that between Mademoiselle Margaret, the King's sister, and the Duke of Savoy. Among the fêtes in celebration of these events, a grand tournament was held in front of the Royal Hotel of the Tournelles, and nearly at the foot of the Bastille. On the 29th of June, Henry II, who was fond of this exercise, and had already run some courses, determined, in spite of the entreaties of his Queen to the contrary, to tilt with Gabriel, Count of Montgomery, the captain of his Scottish guard; when the lances of both combatants were shivered in the charge, and a fragment of that of Montgomery pierced the King's visor and entered his eye. In the midst of indescribable confusion and alarm, Henry was carried to the Tournelles, where, in spite of the best surgical aid, he died of the wound, July 10th. He was in the prime of life, being only in his forty-first year. He left seven legitimate children; namely, four sons, Francis II, Charles IX, Henry III, and Francis, Duke of Alençon; and three daughters, Elizabeth, married, as we have said, to Philip II, Claude, who married the Duke of Lorraine, and Margaret, who espoused Henry of Navarre, subsequently Henry IV.

The unexpected death of Henry II seemed to crown with a sudden success all the ambitious aspirations of the Guises. Francis II, who now ascended the throne of France, was the husband of their niece, Mary, the youthful Queen of Scots; and as the new King was only in his sixteenth year, it was evident that the whole power of the monarchy would fall into the hands of his uncles-in-law. Nor was their influence confined to France. Their sister, the widow of James V of Scotland, was Queen Regent of that country; while their niece, Mary Stuart, claimed to be rightful heir of the English, as well as Scottish, Crown; and she and her husband Francis openly assumed the arms of England. The chief offices of trust and power in France were immediately seized by the Guises; Duke Francis assuming the command of the army, while the Cardinal of Lorraine undertook the administration of the finances. Montmorenci, who had enjoyed so large a share of power under Henry II, though treated by the young King with outward respect, was deprived of his office of Grand-master of the royal household, which was conferred upon the Duke of Guise; and the Constable retired to his châteaux of Chantilli and Ecouen; Antony, King of Navarre, and even Catharine de' Medici, both of whom, Antony as first Prince of the blood and Catharine as Queen-mother, had better claims than the Guises to assume the reins of government, were repulsed, and treated with studied indignity. The notion of a regency was scornfully rejected on the ground that the King was old enough to reign; and thus the Guises were enabled to govern under his name. When Antony, who, after Henry's wound, had been invited to Court by Montmorenci, arrived at St. Germain, he experienced nothing but insults. Nobody went to receive him, and the principal apartment of the palace, to which he was entitled as first Prince of the blood, was occupied by the Duke of Guise. Antony, a poor feeble creature, patiently endured these contumelies. His brother, Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, who had more vigor of character, and was regarded by the Protestants as their head, was sent out of the way to ratify the treaty of Câteau-Cambrésis at Brussels, and his poverty was insulted by the inadequate sum of 1,000 crowns for his journey. Catharine de' Medici, who saw that her time was not come, and that she had only escaped from the dominion of the Duchess of Valentinois to fall under that of her daughter-in-law, Mary, offered no resistance, and endeavored to steer between the different parties. The Guises even talked of sending her back to Florence.

Under the domination of the Guises, it might be foreseen that the religious disputes, the great question of the age, must soon be brought in France to the arbitrament of the sword. Bigoted and violent, that family were the thorough and unscrupulous adherents of the policy of Rome and of Philip II. After the peace of Câteau-Cambrésis they had stimulated their sister, the Queen Regent of Scotland, to acts of violence against the reformers in that Kingdom, who were now organized into a league under the name of “the Congregation”. The example of the Scots had encouraged the French Reformers, who also formed a closer union, and began about this time to be called Huguenots. At Paris they almost entirely occupied the Faubourg St. Germain, which obtained the name of “the Little Geneva”. Numerous edicts now began to be levelled at them, and they were forbidden to carry arms, or to wear large mantles or boots in which weapons might be concealed. The bigotry and intolerance of the government were seconded by the fanaticism of the lower classes. Those who neglected to salute the images of the Virgin set up at the corners of the streets were dragged to prison, nay, sometimes killed by the infuriated populace.

The principal leaders of the Huguenots at this time were Antony’s consort Jeanne, his brother the Prince of Condé, and the Châtillons, especially the Admiral Coligni and his brother d'Andelot. Antony himself was too insignificant to be of any account. Condé openly professed himself the head of the Huguenots; and he held a conference of their principal leaders at his residence, La Ferté, in Champagne. The position of parties, the attitude of the government, rendered the question as much a political as a religious one; and in the hope of regaining their influence the Huguenot leaders loudly demanded an assembly of the States-General. Catharine, who had hitherto pretended to favor the Huguenots, alarmed at the idea of such an assembly, drew nearer to the Guises, and solicited the help of her son-in-law, Philip II of Spain. But the force of circumstances rendered at that time the policy of Philip somewhat singular and anomalous. As far as the suppression of heresy was concerned, he went heart and soul with the Guises; but in this instance the prosecution of his darling views was embarrassed by the existence of a young female, Mary Stuart; and, as in many other instances, he seems to have grudged a life which thwarted his policy. He dreaded any revolution that would unite the Crowns of France, England, and Scotland on one head, and was, consequently, in this respect, from purely political considerations, opposed to the Guises. Hence, singularly enough, the champion King of orthodoxy was led to defend for a while the heretic Elizabeth against the see of Rome, and thus indirectly aided the re-establishment of Protestantism in England. And though he returned Catharine a courteous answer, he did not at this juncture contribute a single man or a single maravedi in support of the Catholic cause in France.

The refusal of the Guises to assemble the States-General led to the wild and impolitic conspiracy of Amboise; the object of which was to seize the King and the Guises at Blois, to bring the Guises to trial, to summon the States, and to confer the regency on King Antony. The chief mover in it was Godefroi de Barri, Sieur de la Renaudie, a man of bankrupt fortune and character, and ready for any desperate enterprise. Condé and the Châtillons appear to have been privy to the conspiracy, but took no active part; and it was disapproved of by Calvin, whom La Renaudie had consulted. The plot was betrayed by one of the conspirators, and frustrated by removing the Court from Blois to the Castle of Amboise. Some of the leading Huguenots were summoned to the defence of the King, and the command of the Castle of Amboise was entrusted to Condé himself, who, under an apparently honorable appointment, became in reality a prisoner.

La Renaudie, who, at the head of 300 men, had nevertheless persisted in his design, was intercepted and killed, and his bands dispersed. Like all abortive conspiracies, this plot only strengthened the hands of those against whom it was directed. In spite of the opposition of Catharine and the Chancellor Olivier, Guise was proclaimed the King's Lieutenant-General, an office which conferred upon him an almost dictatorial power; and he caused a great many of those who had been connected with the conspiracy to be put to death.

The Chancellor Olivier, at heart a Protestant, died soon after the detection of this conspiracy, and Catharine de' Medici, with the consent of the Guises, now gave the seals to Michel de L'Hopital, who at that time filled at Nice the office of Chancellor to Margaret of France, Duchess of Savoy. The Lorraine Princes as yet knew him only as a man of humble origin, but of great legal and literary talent; they suspected not the patriotic devotion, the inflexible constancy, which, though concealed under an appearance of deference towards the great, have rendered L'Hopital one of the most remarkable and worthy ministers that France has ever possessed. He was one of the few enlightened spirits in those days of bigotry and fanaticism, who held that toleration was not incompatible with true religion; his grand scheme was to let Catholicism and Protestantism subsist side by side; whence by some he was regarded as a Huguenot, by others as an Atheist. A man of such moderate views had necessarily many difficulties to contend with in those days of excitement.

Flushed with their recent triumph, the Guises wished to use the power which the abortive conspiracy had thrown into their hands, in order to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into France; nor could L'Hopital divert them from this project, except by consenting to the Edict of Romorantin (May, 1560). It was with great reluctance that the Parliament of Paris registered an edict which transferred all trials for heresy from the civil to the episcopal jurisdiction. L'Hopital somewhat modified the law by his interpretation of it, and introduced a clause by which false accusers were subjected to the lex talionis.

The policy of the Guises was not so successful abroad as at home. The death of their sister the Queen Regent of Scotland (June 10th, 1560), the dispersion by a storm of the French fleet, with a considerable army on board, and the naval and military aid afforded by Queen Elizabeth to the Congregation, obliged the French in Leith to capitulate; and the Guises found themselves compelled to sanction a treaty by which the French were to evacuate Scotland; while Bang Francis II and his wife Mary Stuart agreed to renounce the arms and royal title of England (July 5th). Thus the Reformation was established in Scotland, and the Scots were now inclined towards the English alliance in preference to their ancient one with France.

The affairs of France itself, however, sufficed at this period to engross the attention of the Guises. The French Huguenots were preparing to take up arms; Condé had retired to the Court of his brother King Antony at Nerac, and endeavored to stir into action his sluggish nature; the Guises on their side were arming for the struggle, and treating with petty German potentates for mercenary troops. Their great difficulty was the empty state of the royal exchequer; nor in the present state of parties dared they venture on assembling the States-General in order to impose new taxes. As a preliminary step, it was determined to call an assembly of Notables, which met at Fontainebleau, August 20th, 1560. At this meeting, over which the young King presided, Montmorenci and his nephews, the Admiral Coligni, d'Andelot, and the Cardinal de Châtillon, the Vidame of Chartres, and others, appeared, on the side of the Protestants, escorted by a strong body of cavalry: the King of Navarre and his brother Condé were invited, but declined to attend. Before business began, Coligni surprised the assembly by suddenly rising and presenting a petition from the Protestants of Normandy, whose prayer was that they might be allowed to meet for worship in the face of day, and thus avoid the calumnies that were spread respecting their nocturnal meetings. Coligni proceeded to complain of the young King's education; that his person was surrounded with guards, and that he was thus taught to look upon his subjects as enemies, instead of seeking to live in their affections. This speech excited the rage of Guise and his brother the Cardinal. The Duke having observed that the petition had no signatures, the Admiral replied that he would soon get it signed by 10,000 men; upon which Guise furiously retorted, “And I will put myself at the head of 100,000 men, who will sign the contrary with their blood”. The result of the deliberations was that the States-General should be assembled, and that a National Council should be called for the discussion of religious differences. But before the States met events took place which changed the whole aspect of affairs.

Although Condé did not himself attend at Fontainebleau he had sent an agent named La Sague to come to an understanding with the Constable and the Châtillons. This man was arrested by order of the Guises, and revealed all the plans of Condé. It appeared from dispatches written in sympathetic ink, that Montmorenci had advised the Bourbons to come to the Court in great force, and to overpower and arraign the Guises. In consequence of these disclosures the Vidame of Chartres was thrown into the Bastille; several other distinguished persons were arrested, and Francis II cited the King of Navarre to bring his brother to Court, in order that Condé might justify himself from the designs against the safety of the State that were imputed to him.

To disconcert the measures of their enemies, the Guises the conceived a plot of wonderful audacity. Protestantism was to be put down with a high hand, and its principal leaders destroyed, by a movement in which the Pope, the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and other Italian Princes were to participate. The National Council was to be refused on the ground that the Council of Trent was about to be re-opened; the States, when they assembled, were to abstain from discussing any point of religion, and a confession of faith was to be banded to the deputies, as well as to all nobles, prelates, officers and others who attended. Laymen who refused to sign it were to be instantly condemned and burnt; while ecclesiastics were to be handed over to their own order for punishment. Coligni, d' Andelot, and probably their brother, the Cardinal Chatillon, were to be involved in this extermination, and as Montmorenci and his sons could not be charged with heresy, they were to be accused of a plot against the State. The executions were to be repeated throughout the Kingdom; French troops were to join those from Italy and Savoy, to massacre the Vaudois, and to attack Geneva; while the Spaniards were to invade Bearn, and hold in check the vassals of the heretic Bourbons.

The plan, however, was only very partially executed. It was not till the summer of 1559 that Philip II quitted the Netherlands, to which he never returned. One of the causes of his departure was the intelligence which he had received of the progress of the Reformation in Spain, the consequence of the close connection between that country and Germany during the reign of Charles V. Bibles in the Castilian tongue and other prohibited books printed in Germany had found their way into Spain; but as the study of them was chiefly confined to the higher and more educated classes, the progress of the new tenets had long remained undiscovered. To arrest it were fulminated the bulls of Pope Paul IV and the edicts of Philip II.

The chief Inquisitor, Fernando Valdes, Archbishop of Seville, a fierce and cunning fanatic, was a fitting instrument to carry out the views of Rome and of his master. The fires of the Inquisition in Spain were no longer lit for Jews and Moors alone, and in May, 1559, took place the first auto da fe of Spanish Protestants.

Philip II arrived off Laredo in Biscay on the 8th September. A violent storm had nearly delivered Europe from half a century of oppression. The vessel which brought Philip, as well as several others of his fleet, foundered in sight of port; more than 1,000 persons perished, and Philip himself only escaped by landing in a boat. From Laredo he proceeded to Valladolid, where he received his sister Joanna’s resignation of the regency, and feasted his eyes with the burning of some heretics. These measures of severity proved successful in Spain, and in a few years all traces of the Reformation were stamped out; but with it was also extinguished the future prosperity of Spain. Don Carlos was indeed suspected of sympathizing with the Reformers, and Philip was afterwards accused of having fulfilled his horrible threat. Early in 1560 the Catholic King celebrated at Guadalajara, in New Castile, his marriage with Elizabeth of France, she being now fifteen, while Philip was thirty-four.

Elizabeth, from the circumstances of her marriage, was called by the Spaniards, Isabel de la Paz, or Isabella of the Peace. Philip II was not averse to the scheme of the Guises. He had again accorded his friendship to that family after the revolution in Scotland, which removed his distrust of French policy in that quarter; but the Spanish arms had just experienced great reverses in Africa, the finances were in a bad state, and Granvelle dissuaded Philip from taking any active part in the plot. Nor did the Guises obtain anything more than good wishes from Rome, where another and milder Pontiff now occupied the Papal chair

The last year of Paul IV’s Pontificate was marked by a singular revolution. This Pontiff, who, suddenly raised from the Theatine cloister to the tiara, had used his new dignity with insatiable greediness, began now to reign as had been at first expected of him, and returned to his old plans of reform. The change was specially signalized by his renunciation of nepotism and by the disgrace of his nephews. He had been estranged from Cardinal Caraffa by his unsuccessful embassy to the Court of Philip II, and from the young Cardinal del Monte by his riotous conduct in drawing his sword in a midnight brawl. At a meeting of the Inquisition Paul rebuked Del Monte in violent terms, and thundered out “Reform! Reform!”. His agitation deprived him of appetite and sleep, and threw him into a violent fever. On the 27th of January, 1559, having summoned a Consistory, he passionately denounced the immoral lives of his nephews, called on God and man to witness that he had been ignorant of their conduct, dismissed them from their posts and sent them into banishment.

Paul IV now entered on an entirely new course of government. He abandoned his hatred of Spain, and zealously assisted the Spanish Inquisition in repressing heresy. The secular affairs of the Roman State were entrusted to new hands; many abuses were abolished, the sale of places was restricted, and a chest, of which he alone kept the key, was erected in public, into which every man might throw his petitions and complaints. In token of these reforms he caused a medal of himself to be struck, having on the reverse Christ driving the money changers from the temple. He never missed attending the weekly meetings of the Inquisition; and in a bull which he issued respecting that institution he declared that if the Pontiff himself should be found to have lapsed into heresy before his election, the election itself, as well as all his acts, should be annulled.

His deeds corresponded with his words, and his last days were occupied with arrests and excommunications. At the same time he increased the pomp of divine worship, embellished the decorations of the Sistine Chapel, and instituted the representation of the Holy Sepulcher, still exhibited in Catholic churches at Easter. The people, however, did not forget the war which he had brought upon Rome; and the reign of informers and executioners became so terrible that they conceived an implacable hatred against him. Paul IV died August 18th, 1559, at the age of eighty-three. As he lay expiring the populace broke open the dungeons of the Inquisition, delivered the prisoners, burnt the prison and the acts of the Holy Office, tore down the arms of the Caraffas from the public places, overthrew the statue of the Pope, and breaking off the head with the triple crown, rolled it with shouts of execration into the Tiber.

PIUS IV

 

The choice of Paul IV’s successor was violently contested by the French and Spanish parties. The Conclave lasted four months; and at length Gian Angelo Medicino was elected (December 26th, 1559), who assumed the title of Pius IV. He was, as already mentioned, the brother of the too celebrated Gianjacopo Medicino, who by his military talent had obtained the dukedom of Marignano. Gian Angelo, after taking the degree of doctor of laws, settled at Rome, where he bought an office, and having won the confidence of Pope Paul IV, he obtained a Cardinal's hat through the interest of his brother, who had married an Orsina.

No men could be of more opposite tempers than Pius IV and his predecessor. Instead of the dignity and haughtiness of Paul IV, Pius, who had not been clerically bred, displayed nothing but affability and condescension. This diversity of temper had caused an enmity between them, and Cardinal Medicino, during the Pontificate of Paul IV, who could not endure him, had been obliged to quit Rome.

At the time of his election, Pius IV was an able-bodied old man, active enough to repair to his country house before sunrise, fond of jocular conversation and the pleasures of the table. But though no bigot or ascetic, Pius relaxed nothing in the severe discipline established by his predecessor. He declared that he was no theologian — that he was not acquainted with such matters; and he consequently left them to take their own course. He even made a fearful example of the nephews of Paul IV, whose excesses had been frightful, including robbery, forgery, murder, and crimes of all sorts. Cardinal Caraffa, the Duke of Pagliano, and two of their nearest kinsmen, were condemned to death. On the score of nepotism Pius IV himself was not put to the trial. One of his nephews, Frederick Borromeo, had died early; the other, the celebrated Cardinal Charles Borromeo, was distinguished by the worthiness of his life, and found his only dissipation in the society of literary men. As well as being a lover of peace and conciliation, Pius IV also differed from his predecessor in being attached to the House of Austria, through which his brother had obtained his advancement; and hence he not only recognized Ferdinand’s title to the Empire, but also consented to the re-assembling of the Council of Trent, as there will be occasion to relate in another place.

Pius IV, as we have said, lent no aid to the scheme of the Guises, and the Duke of Savoy alone, induced apparently by the desire of aggrandizing his territory, helped in executing the plan. In September, 1560, the troops of Emmanuel Philibert attacked the Vaudois in the valleys of the Alps and Dauphine, but found not such unresisting victims as had been slaughtered at Cabrières and Mérindol. The relics of that massacre hastened from Provence to the help of their brethren with a courage lashed into fury by the memory of their former wrongs. The disciplined troops of Piedmont were repeatedly defeated by a handful of ill-armed peasants, and in June, 1561, the Duke of Savoy in spite of the protests of Rome and Spain, was fain to grant the Vaudois a peace, in which he recognized their religious liberties.

Although abandoned by their foreign allies, the Guises persevered in their plan, to the execution of which the destruction of the Bourbons was a necessary preliminary. Antony repudiated the charges against his brother, and declared that if his calumniators would make themselves parties, instead of judges, in the suit, he would bring Condé with him to Orleans. Allurement was now substituted for menace; the weak and credulous Cardinal of Bourbon was dispatched to his brothers in Gascony to assure them of a peaceful reception and unmolested return; and after much doubt and perplexity, King Antony and Condé determined to go. Their chief motive seems to have been that a refusal would have the appearance of hesitating to meet the States, whose assembly they had so urgently demanded; and although they received many letters on their road warning them not to enter Orleans, they continued their journey. The blood royal which flowed in their veins would, they thought, protect them; nevertheless, wherever they passed, they summoned the ministers of the reformed churches and recommended themselves to their prayers. The King of Navarre even declined the offers of about 800 well-armed gentlemen, who met them at Limoges and promised the aid of 10,000 men to deliver the King out of the hands of the Guises. When King Antony and Condé entered Orleans, Francis II, who had denounced them to the Parliament of Paris as the authors of the conspiracy of Amboise, directed the Prince to be arrested, and a watch to be placed on the King of Navarre. Of the Châtillons, Coligni alone had gone to Orleans; but his liberty was respected for fear of his family. A commission was appointed to try Condé, at the head of which was the President, Christopher de Thou, the father of the celebrated historian; and though the Prince refused to plead before such a tribunal, his objections were overruled, and sentence of death pronounced upon him.

Another fate awaited the King of Navarre. He was to be murdered in the very cabinet of the King, and the Guises had prevailed on Francis to strike the first blow with his own hand; but at the fatal moment, fear, not conscience, arrested the stroke. Such were the sons of Catharine, the Machiavellian Tuscan, familiar with the dagger and the bowl. Another plan was now adopted; it was resolved to destroy Antony by contriving some “fatal accident” at a hunting party. An unexpected event, however, disconcerted all the schemes of the Guises, just at the moment of their completion. The young King Francis, who had always been of a feeble and sickly constitution, fell ill the day before the hunt, and died after a sickness of about three weeks, December 5th, 1560.

The Queen-Mother was now mistress of the situation. The lieutenantship of the Duke of Guise ceased ipso facto on the death of the King, and Catharine undertook the conduct of affairs in the name of her second son, now Charles IX, without, however, assuming the title of Regent. The Guises, seeing that their power henceforth depended on the favor of the Queen, urged her to make herself the absolute mistress of France by putting the Bourbons to death; and they assured her of their devoted services. They had, however, avoided committing themselves openly, and had made the Council sign the order for the arrest of the princes, without attaching their own signatures. L'Hopital saved Catharine from a step that would have been as impolitic as criminal; and advised the policy of balancing one party against the other, which she so successfully adopted. The two chief princes of the blood were, at this juncture, completely in her power; even their lives were at her disposal, and the wily Florentine saw and used her advantages.

While her son Francis II lay at the point of death, Catharine resolved to extort from the feeble Antony the regency, which would by right have fallen to him during the minority of her son Charles. She invited him to an interview, after he had first been secretly informed by the Duchess of Montpensier, that, if he wished to save his life, he must refuse nothing that the Queen should desire. When Antony entered the cabinet of Catharine she assumed a serious mien, reproached him with his machinations, exhorted him to reconcile himself with “his cousins, the Guises”, and called upon him to sign a paper by which he agreed to renounce the regency, even though it should be offered to him by the States that were about to meet. At such a price was he to obtain not only his life, but also the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, and the next place to herself. To the terror of threats were added the artifices of seduction. Catharine was surrounded by a swarm of ladies, who were called, “the Queen’s flying squadron”. By one of these, Mademoiselle de Rouet, Antony was brought to abandon all thoughts of contesting the regency with the Queen, and to content himself with the title of Lieutenant-General, which was officially conferred upon him, March 25th, 1561.

As soon as Francis II had expired, Condé, whose execution had been fixed for the 10th of December, was told that he was free; but he refused to accept his life as a favor, and he demanded to know by whose authority he had been imprisoned. He was impolitic enough to think that his honor required an official justification, and in consequence was demanded to a sort of honorable imprisonment at one of his brother’s places in Picardy. Thus he lost the advantage of being present in such a crisis at the meeting of the States.

Charles IX was of a constitution as feeble as that of his brother Francis; nervous in temperament, but with considerable ardor and imagination. As he was only ten years of age, his minority would unfortunately be a long one, at the very juncture when the nation was fermenting with the most violent passions. After the death of her husband, Mary Stuart sank into insignificance; and Catharine retaliated so harshly the contumelious treatment which she considered that she had received at the hands of the Scottish Queen, that Mary was compelled to withdraw from Court, and finally from France.

The Montmorencis and Châtillons reappeared at Court, with a great retinue, and the Constable resumed the military authority which he had been obliged to resign to the Duke of Guise. Thus Catharine de' Medici at length began to rule, though hardly competent to the great part she was called upon to play. She had, indeed, considerable talent and application : her deficiency lay in her heart and character, rather than in her head.

The meeting of the Etats-Généraux was opened at Orleans, December 13th, 1560. The amount of debt, however, was so alarming that the deputies declared they could not vote the demanded supplies without the authorization of the Provincial States, and the assembly was consequently adjourned. Calvin strongly urged King Antony to seize the sovereign power to which he was entitled; and there can be no doubt that he would have succeeded in obtaining the regency, if he had had the courage to assert his claim before the States. But that weak Prince was fettered by the double power of fear and love. On the day when the Etats Généraux were adjourned (January 31st, 1561), appeared the celebrated Edict of Orleans, in which with some modification the greater part of the reforms demanded by the Tiers Etat were granted; and especially those two great blots on the reign of Francis I, the Concordat and the sale of offices were removed.

The Concordat had proved most injurious to the Gallican Church, by placing all ecclesiastical patronage in the King's hands, which was thus often exercised by his mistresses. The sons and kinsfolk of civil and military officers, nay, sometimes those officers themselves, were rewarded with ecclesiastical preferments, and there are instances of captains of foot who enjoyed rich abbeys. Some of these men even undertook to discharge the functions of their holy offices; and soldiers, traders, and courtiers might be seen in the robes and mitres of bishops and abbots. The reforms of L'Hopital were, however, warmly opposed by the Parliament of Paris, which urged on the most detestable persecution, while he was endeavoring to establish an enlightened toleration.

For a while, Catharine, in pursuance of her trimming policy, submitted to be governed by her Chancellor. The reformed service was allowed in the very verge of the Court; and Jean de Montluc, Bishop of Valence, a prelate inclined to Protestant tenets, preached in the great hall of the Palace of Fontainebleau. It was now time for the Constable Montmorenci to choose his part. He must either declare for the Huguenots or for the Papists and the Guises. There were several motives which induced him to decide for the latter party. Montmorenci was jealous of his nephews, and especially of Coligni; besides, if he decided against the Guises he lost the friendship of Spain, whose creature he was. Instead of attending the sermons of Montluc, Montmorenci resorted to an orthodox chapel in the courtyard, intended for the lower orders, where he met the Duke of Guise, the Marshal St. André, and others. Guise seized the opportunity to ingratiate himself with the Constable; the reconciliation was mediated through the Marshal St. André and the Duchess of Valentinois; and a sort of holy league for the destruction of Protestantism was entered into by Montmorenci, Guise and the Marshal, and cemented by their taking the communion together on Easter Sunday (1661). This alliance obtained the name of the Triumvirate. But the time was not yet ripe for action; and Guise and the Constable withdrew at present from Court.

The measures of the government encouraged the Huguenots, who now began to display an active resistance. Riots took place at Beauvais, the episcopal see of the Cardinal of Châtillon, and at Paris the disturbances were still more serious. A body of fanatical Catholics, among whom were a great number of students, stormed a house in the Faubourg St. Germain, where the Huguenots were assembled for worship; several noblemen among the congregation rushed out sword in hand, and a fight ensued, in which many of the assailants were killed and the whole body routed and dispersed. The contest was renewed on the following day with similar results. These disturbances afforded the Cardinal of Lorraine a pretext to step forth as head of the Catholic Church in France. The Cardinal was no fanatic. He was candid enough to admit that the greater part of the people were averse to the superstitions of Rome; yet he coolly maintained that the dominant system must be upheld by the secular arm. His motives for this opinion were better than his reasons. Under Charles IX, the Cardinal succeeded in installing himself in no fewer than twelve episcopal sees, among which were three archbishoprics, Rheims, Lyons and Narbonne, and the three rich and newly-acquired German sees of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which were, in fact, principalities. Their wealth may be computed from the fact that in Verdun alone the Cardinal made the Duke of Lorraine a present of vacant fiefs to the value of 200,000 crowns. Catharine bad not sufficient firmness to assert the principals of L'Hopital in opposition to the Catholic leaders. It was determined that, in awaiting the meeting of the ecclesiastical synod, some arrangement must be come to with the Parliament of Paris respecting the treatment of dissenters; and on the 23rd of June, 1561, the Royal Council and the spiritual and temporal Peers met the Parliament in the Palais de Justice. The debates lasted three weeks. One party demanded the penalty of death against all heretics; another, that all penal proceedings should be suspended till the meeting of the General Council; the third and largest party voted for sentence of death against all who attended conventicles, and that cases of simple heresy should be remitted to the ecclesiastical courts; persons condemned, however, were not to be subjected to a heavier penalty than banishment. An edict, known as the Edict of July, was drawn up in conformity with this last decision, but mitigated in some of its articles by the Chancellor. Neither party was satisfied. The Huguenots complained that they had been deceived; the Parliament, that the decree had been altered; and the edict was only provisionally registered.

The States-General again assembled at Pontoise, in August, 1561. The deputies of the Clergy did not appear in this assembly, which, therefore, consisted only of the representatives of the nobility and Tiers Etat. One of the first acts of the States was, to insist that the Parliament should register the Edict of Orleans; after which they discussed the subjects of the regency, the religious differences, and the public debt. The arrangement which Catharine had made with the King of Navarre was acquiesced in, but only at the pressing instance of Antony himself and Admiral Coligni. The States demanded, in opposition to the Guises, that no Cardinals should sit in the Council of Regency, because they were in the service of a foreign master; nor any Bishops, because they were bound to reside in their dioceses; nor, lastly, any foreign Princes, — a veto which included the whole family of Lorraine. With regard to religion, the States demanded complete toleration, and a Council; and they proposed to throw upon the clergy the chief burden of the public debt.

CONFERENCE AT POSSY

The religious conference, after several adjournments, at length took place in September, in the refectory of the Benedictines at Poissy. The Reformed Church was represented by twelve ministers and twenty-two deputies, who were joined by Peter Martyr Vermiglio, once an Italian abbot, and now a distinguished reformer. The Huguenots had pressed Calvin to be present; but the Council of Geneva would not allow him to enter France unless hostages of the first distinction were given for his safety; nor, indeed, did the state of his health render it prudent for him to undertake so long a journey. The Reformers probably lost nothing by his absence. Beza, who managed the conference on the part of the Huguenots, was, perhaps, better qualified to conduct it on this occasion, when was arrayed against him all the splendor of the French court and hierarchy. His handsome person and noble bearing, his perfect self-possession and natural fluency of speech well qualified him to treat with Catharine and her courtiers; and though in theological learning, and especially in patristic lore, he was not so well prepared, yet on such points he would be assisted by Peter Martyr, the most learned of the Reformers. Previously to the opening of the conference Beza was unexpectedly introduced to an interview with the Queen-Mother and the Cardinal of Lorraine, during which Catharine displayed much inquisitiveness respecting Calvin.

The conference was opened on the 9th of September. The young King presided in person, surrounded by the Queen-Mother, the King and Queen of Navarre, the Duke of Guise, the Cardinals of Lorraine, Tournon, Bourbon, and Armagnac, together with many prelates, doctors of the Sorbonne, and distinguished theologians. The Cardinal of Lorraine managed for the Catholic party, who, though no theologian, was a man of ability, a good scholar, and fluent Latin speaker. In the midst of the conference, Ippolito d'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, son of Alfonso d'Este by Lucretia Borgia, arrived as Papal Legate, bringing with him James Lainez, the General of the Jesuits. The Legate's cross-bearer was hooted in the streets, and he was obliged to dispense with that ensign of his dignity. Lainez, in an abusive speech which lasted an hour, protested against the meeting as unauthorized, and succeeded in converting it into a sort of private conference, with five managers on each side. In order to set the Protestants at variance, the Cardinal of Lorraine pretended that he should not be indisposed to tolerate the Confession of Augsburg. He had brought some Lutherans with him to provoke a quarrel between them and the Calvinists respecting the doctrine of the Lord's Supper; and he proposed that the Calvinists should subscribe a Lutheran formula, in which the real presence in the Eucharist was acknowledged; but Beza foiled him by remarking that such an act would lead to nothing unless the Cardinal himself would also sign.

On the whole, the conference at Poissy gave an impulse to the Reformation in France. It was something gained that such a meeting should have been even tolerated, and the Calvinists allowed by the Government openly to state and defend their opinions without danger of the stake. When the conference broke up, Catharine requested Beza to remain in France, in the hope that his presence might contribute to quell the disturbances with which the Kingdom was afflicted; and as the leaders of the Huguenots were also desirous of retaining him, permission was obtained from the Council of Geneva for the prolongation of his stay. At Paris, however, where the populace were fanatical Papists, his presence was the signal for tumult instead of peace; and though he obtained permission to preach, it was necessary that d'Andelot should escort him to meeting at the head of an armed band. The day after Christmas Day, these Huguenot meetings occasioned a conflict. Beza, escorted by command of Catharine by the prefect of the watch and his men, attended a sermon preached by a minister named Malot in the Faubourg St. Marceau. Malot had scarcely begun his discourse, when the clergy of the neighboring church of St. Medard began to ring the bells furiously, in order to down his voice; and one of Malot’s congregation, who had civilly requested them to desist, was run through the body with a partisan. A general affray ensued. The Catholics called the people to arms by the sound of the tocsin; the Huguenots, headed by the prefect of the watch, took the church by assault, and captured a number of their adversaries, including ten priests, most of whom had been wounded. The tumult was renewed on the following day, and gave the signal for similar riots in the provinces.

After the conference at Poissy, it had been resolved to call another assembly of Notables with a view to publish at least some provisional edict on the subject of religion. Such a step was vehemently opposed by the Guises and the high Catholic party; who, finding the Queen resolute, retired to their country seats. The assembly in question, which was composed of the Presidents and Counselors of the different Parliaments of the French Kingdom, met at St. Germain in January, 1562; and the result of their deliberations was the famous Edict of January, or Edict of Toleration. This law, by which the existence of Protestantism was formally recognized, and which formed the basis of the privileges it has subsequently enjoyed in France, was the work of the Chancellor de L'Hopital. Its main provisions were : that all penalties contained in former edicts against the Protestants should be suspended till the meeting of a General Council; and that Protestant congregations should be allowed to assemble for worship in the day-time, and in the suburbs of towns, but not in the towns themselves. On the other hand, the Huguenots were not to come to their conventicles with arms, except such gentlemen as were privileged to wear them; they were ordered to restore all the churches which they had seized upon, and to replace all the ornaments and sacred utensils which they had defaced or removed; they were forbidden to resist the payment of tithes, to levy troops, or to contribute among themselves for any other purpose than providing salaries for their ministers.

These events raised the spirits of the Huguenots, and even men of talent and learning shared the popular fervor. After the promulgation of the edict, and in spite of its provisions, La Ramée, or Ramus, the celebrated opponent of the Aristotelian philosophy and founder of a new system of logic, caused all the images in the chapel of the college of Presles, of which he was principal, to be thrown down. Calvin foretold that if the provisions of the edict were carried out, Popish power would be annihilated in France. Yet this measure, which the Protestants regarded with so much confidence, proved the immediate cause of the ensuing civil war, by which, after many years of bloodshed, the supremacy of the Roman Catholic faith was finally established. By the Catholic party the edict was received with violent indignation. The Constable Montmorenci and the Duke of Guise resolved to oppose it by force of arms. The King of Spain and Pope Pius IV used every artifice to excite opposition to it; and as both were represented in France by very able diplomatists, their efforts were attended with considerable success. Perrenot de Chantonay, the Spanish minister (elder brother of Cardinal Granvelle), whose letters throw great light on the intricate policy of the period, succeeded in detaching the Queen from the Huguenot party, although she still kept up the appearance of an alliance with them. Philip II had written to his mother-in-law that if she continued to tolerate heresy in France, it would be impossible for him to prevent its entrance into Spain and the Netherlands : she must, therefore purge her realm from this pestilence with fire and sword, no matter what the number of the victims; and he would assist in its extirpation in whatever way she might require.

MASSACRE OF VASSY, 1562

De Chantonay, assisted by the Cardinal of Ferrara, Papal Legate, also succeeded in gaining over the King of Navarre to the cause of the triumvirate; an acquisition, however, of no great importance except from the rank of the apostate. It would be useless to speculate on the motives which operated on so weak a mind as Antony’s; whether he was shaken by the conference of Poissy and the eloquence of the Cardinal of Lorraine, as he himself gave out; or whether he was moved by a secret jealousy of his brother Condé, who, as the recognized head of the Huguenots, enjoyed a post to which he thought himself entitled; or whether he was really dazzled and enticed by the false but splendid baits held out to him by Philip and the triumvirate : such as among others the Island of Sardinia, or the hand and throne of Mary Queen of Scots; a proposal, however, which he could not have accepted without a divorce from his wife, Jeanne d'Albret. He was, however, induced to send Jeanne back to Bearn, and he promised to educate in the Catholic faith his son Henry, whose chance of the throne which he afterwards ascended, in consequence of the feeble constitutions of Catharine’s sons, did not even then appear very remote. Jeanne, however, read young Henry a long lecture before she departed; and threatened that if he attended Mass he should never succeed to her Kingdom of Navarre.

One of the first steps of Antony after his recantation, and in his capacity of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, was to summon Guise with his compagnie d'ordonnance to Paris, in order, as he said, to preserve the capital and the Catholic religion. Guise had already determined to use violence. In the previous month, with the view of depriving the Huguenots of any assistance which they might expect from the German Lutherans, he and three of his brothers, the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise and the Duke of Aumale, had had an interview with Christopher, Duke of Würtemberg, at Saverne, in Alsace; when the Cardinal of Lorraine pretended to agree on almost every point with the Lutheran doctrines; and the Duke of Guise, after listening with affected patience to the dogmatic explanations of Christopher, exclaimed, “Well, well, if that’s the case, I am a Lutheran too”. But on their return from the conference they caused an artisan to be hanged for having his child baptized according to the reformed rite.

Guise’s road to Paris lay through Vassy, a town which formed part of the dower of Mary Stuart. It was governed by Antoinette de Bourbon, Mary's grandmother and mother of the Guises, who expressed much annoyance at the Calvinists having established a conventicle in a barn not far from the parish church. Either through chance or design. Guise entered Vassy with his troops on a Sunday, when a congregation of more than 1,000 Huguenots were assembled in the barn for worship, as they were entitled to do by the January edict. The scene which ensued has been differently described by Catholic and Protestant writers. The former assert that the Huguenots were the aggressors; that some of Guise's men had strayed to the spot from mere curiosity; and that a tumult having arisen, the Duke was struck on the cheek with a stone before his soldiers used their weapons. It is hardly probable that a defenseless multitude should have provoked a contest with a body of well-armed troops. However this may be, a dreadful slaughter ensued. Between forty and fifty persons were killed on the spot, and upwards of a hundred more were wounded, many of whom subsequently died of the injuries they had received. Guise sent for the mayor of Vassy, and severely reprehended him for allowing the Huguenots to meet; and when that magistrate pleaded that he had only acted in conformity with the edict of January, the Duke, drawing his sword, furiously exclaimed : “Detestable edict! with this will I break it!”

As soon as the news of this massacre reached Paris, Beza, at the instance of his fellow-religionists, repaired to the Court, then at Monceaux in Brie, to remonstrate against the violation of the edict. Catharine received him very graciously, and pretended she would oppose Guise’s entering Paris; but, in fact, the trimming policy which she had been forced to adopt was a confession of weakness, and proved that if ever the two parties should come into open collision, the royal authority would be reduced to a nullity. At this interview with Beza, the King of Navarre, like all renegades, displayed the utmost virulence against his former party; he defended Guise's conduct with all the warmth of a partisan, and laid the blame of the massacre upon the Huguenots, for having committed the first assault. Beza replied, with dignity and firmness : “I admit, Sire, that it is the part of God’s Church, in whose name I speak, to endure, rather than to inflict, blows; but may it please you to remember that it is an anvil which has worn out many a hammer”.

In spite of Catharine’s pretended prohibition, Guise, accompanied by Montmorenci and St. André — the whole triumvirate together — entered Paris at the head of his troops, March 20th, and was received by the Parisians with shouts of Vive Guise! Condé was also in the capital, at the head of a considerable body of troops, and at one time a collision appeared imminent. A contest in Paris, however, must undoubtedly have ended in favor of the triumvirate, who had not only most troops, but were also supported by the citizens; and under these circumstances, Condé, through the mediation of his brother, the Cardinal of Bourbon, who had been named by the Queen Provisional Governor of Paris, came to an understanding with Guise that both should withdraw with their troops by different gates. Condé fulfilled his part of the engagement; but Guise incited the populace to compel him to stay; and after the departure of Condé, a strong guard was placed at all the gates to prevent the Prince from returning. Condé made another false step in not seizing the young King and his mother, who were now at Fontainebleau; a capture which he might easily have effected, and thus have given to his cause the prestige of legitimate authority.

Condé stopped at Meaux, and contented himself with sending a message to Catharine to know her pleasure. At the same time he addressed circulars to the reformed churches to prepare to defend themselves, and invited the neighboring Huguenot nobility to join him at Meaux. The triumvirate seized the advantage which had been neglected by Condé. Antony of Navarre and the triumvirs proceeded with a strong guard to Fontainebleau; and Catharine, after some days of real or feigned reluctance, in which she alternately listened to the counsels of L'Hopital and the pressing instances of Antony and his allies, removed at last to Paris, and was installed with her son at the Louvre, April 6th, 1562. The Catholic chiefs signalized their victory by a flagrant breach of the Edict of January. Montmorenci, with 200 men, assisted by the mob, attacked two Huguenot meeting-houses outside the gates of St. Jacques and St. Antoine, threw down the pulpits, and burnt the benches. This exploit, which did not much redound to the honor of a Constable of France, procured him the nickname of Captain Brûle-bancs. It was the signal to the populace for outrage, and the unfortunate Huguenots were pillaged and murdered without mercy.

The advantages of activity and decision were thus on the Catholics. The Admiral Coligni seems to have been the chief cause of the delay on the part of the Huguenots. No two men could be more dissimilar in character than the two Huguenot leaders. Condé, small and mean in person, had grace and animation; though amiable, volatile, and addicted to pleasure, he was full of ambition. Coligni, on the contrary, was of a grave and imposing exterior, taciturn, severe, averse to all disorder, constant and tender in his affections. He was the grandest character among the Huguenots, the Cato of the civil wars of France. Such men had little sympathy with each other, and it is not surprising that they did not always agree. It was with the greatest reluctance that the Admiral, now living in retirement in his chateau at Châtillon-sur-Loing, was prevailed upon to take up arms. He saw how inferior were the Huguenot forces; he dreaded the responsibility of kindling the flames of civil war; and it was only through the urgent importunities of his friends, and especially of his wife, that he was at last induced to join Condé at Meaux.

The news of the massacre of Vassy had excited all the Protestants of the north, and Condé and the Admiral were soon surrounded at Meaux by a considerable body of men. On the 30th of March Condé marched towards Paris with the design of seizing the King, and obtained possession of the bridge of St. Cloud. Here he heard that he had been anticipated; and he immediately took the road to Orleans, with the intention of rendering that city the headquarters of the Huguenots. Followed by 2,000 mounted nobles, he set off at a gallop; eighteen miles were accomplished without drawing bridle; horsemen rolled over one another in the dust; and as the cavalcade swept by like a whirlwind, travellers asked one another whether it was a meeting of all the madmen in France. On arriving at Orleans on the morning of the 2nd April, they found that the town had already been seized by their fellow-religionists, under the leadership of D'Andelot.

On the 8th of April Condé published a manifesto which must be regarded as the inauguration of the civil wars. The objects of the Huguenots in taking up arms were declared to be to restore the captive King and his mother to liberty, and to maintain the Edict of January. Though they possessed neither the person, nor probably the affections, of the King, they gave themselves out for his supporters, and adopted his colors, the white scarf; while the Catholics, on the contrary, were shameless enough to assume the red scarf of Spain, and even obliged the young King to wear that foreign livery; thus displaying before all Europe the vassalage of France, and the degradation inflicted by the peace of Câteau-Cambrésis. Charles IX and Catharine answered the manifesto of Condé by a counter-declaration that they were no prisoners : and they issued letters patent confirming the January Edict, and permitting the reformed worship except in Paris and its environs. The Catholic chiefs thus hoped to deprive Condé of his adherents; but it was too late. On the same day, April 11th, the Huguenots signed an association placing the Prince of Condé, whom they styled the protector and defender of the Crown, at the head of a council composed of the leading Huguenot nobles, among whom figured some of the first names in France; as the three Châtillons, La Rochefoucauld, Rohan, Grammont, Soubise, and others. These noblemen levied taxes and raised recruits in their different domains, and provided fanatical preachers to stir up the rage of the southern populations. Many of the chief towns of the French realm declared for the Huguenots; as Rouen, Dieppe, Havre-de-Grace, Angers, Poitiers, Tours, Blois, and especially the important city of Lyons. Beza, who remained with the army of Condé, was the soul of the Calvinistic party. He caused a synod to assemble at Orleans, April 27th, in which was read a Confession of Faith drawn up by Calvin, and ordered to be presented to the Emperor. Condé requested the prayers of the Genevese for the success of his cause, and they were constantly offered up while the war lasted.

The more regular hostilities were ushered in by scattered tumults and massacres. Blood flowed in torrents in most of the great towns of southern France, and unheard-of cruelties were committed on both sides. At Sens, the archiepiscopal see of Cardinal Louis of Guise, a massacre was perpetrated which surpassed in atrocity that of Vassy : Huguenot men, women, and children were slain and thrown into the Yonne. The ferocity of the Huguenots was not a whit less; but in the more northern parts of the realm it was chiefly directed with a senseless frenzy against national monuments and symbols of Catholic worship. At Clery, the tomb of Louis XI was overthrown, and his bones burnt, together with those of the Duke of Longueville, a descendant of the celebrated Dunois. At Caen, the tombs of William the Conqueror and Queen Matilda were destroyed. At Orleans, the heart of the late King, Francis II, was burnt in the cathedral of Ste. Croix; but the crowning profanation in the eyes of all loyal and orthodox Frenchmen, was the overthrowing of the monument of Joan of Arc, which stood on the bridge.

Before the struggle began, both parties sought foreign aid. The Catholic leaders turned of course to the King of Spain, who offered 36,000 men, a force which rather startled them; they requested Philip to provide them with some money and not quite so many soldiers. The Guises bought the help of the Duke of Savoy by ceding to him the places which the French still held in his dominions, with the exception of Pinerolo, and one or two other small towns. The Pope sent Catharine 100,000 crowns, for which she allowed the Legate to have a leading voice in the Council. On the other hand, Condé sought the friendship of Queen Elizabeth. France and England were then at peace; but it was obvious that if the conspiracy against Protestantism succeeded on the Continent, England must be next overwhelmed : and thus, during the reign of Elizabeth, the maintenance of that confession formed the keystone of English policy.

After the accession of Francis II, which might be said to have added Scotland to the Kingdoms already combined in favor of the Pope, Elizabeth and her ministers had contemplated effecting a league among all the Protestants of Europe for their common defence, and some steps had been taken with that view; and though the death of Francis II lessened the immediate apprehensions of Elizabeth and her ministers, their policy still remained unchanged. Negotiations were accordingly entered into with Condé and the Huguenots, which resulted in a treaty signed at Hampton Court, September 20th, 1562. Condé engaged to put the Havre-de-Grace into the hands of the English; and Elizabeth undertook, on her side, to land a body of 6,000 men on the coast of Normandy, and to pay the representatives of Condé in Germany 100,000 crowns, after receiving possession of Havre, which was to serve as a pledge for the restitution of Calais. The money was wanted to hire German and Swiss mercenaries, as Condé expected aid from the Elector Palatine, the Duke of Würtemberg, the Landgrave of Hesse, and other German Princes. But meanwhile war had begun in France, long before help could be expected either from England or Germany.

Catharine had sought to avert, or, at all events, to delay the impending civil war, by negotiations. She and King Antony on one side, the Prince of Condé and the Admiral on the other, attended respectively by a numerous body of nobles, had met in an open plain near Thouri in Sologne, where, from the nature of the ground, no ambuscade could be dreaded. When the two parties approached and recognized in each other's ranks a brother or a friend, they rushed into one another's arms, and deprecated a war which could be carried on only by mutual slaughter between the nearest connections. The interview between the two Bourbons, however, formed a complete contrast to this touching scene. Antony exhibited nothing but harshness and obstinacy, and the brothers separated more embittered than ever. Other conferences followed; but Catharine having declared at one of these that the execution of the January Edict was impossible, an appeal to arms became inevitable.

France now became one wide scene of horror; fanaticism was mingled with the most brutal passions, and robbery and murder prevailed without control. Anarchy reigned wildest in the midland districts. All the towns captured by the Catholic forces were abandoned to slaughter and pillage; the Loire, the Indre, and the Sarthe bore upon their waters innumerable corpses. Besides the usual concomitants of civil war, were to be seen the populations of whole towns, either expelled by force or voluntarily emigrating, and wandering about from place to place as the tide of war advanced or receded. Among the leaders of these atrocities were the Catholic Blaise de Montluc, and the Huguenot Baron des Adrets. Montluc has not scrupled to chronicle in his Memoires the deeds of blood done by himself and his myrmidons in Guienne.

In like manner in Provence and Dauphine, the name of Des Adrets, the Huguenot leader, long lived in the memory of the people, as the symbol of murder and destruction. With the rapidity of a bird of prey, he ravaged in a few days the country between the Saone and the Durance, the Alps, and the mountains of Auvergne, spreading everywhere terror and destruction.

The fortune of war was at first unfavorable to the Huguenots, who for the most part evacuated the towns which they held at the approach of the royal army. Guise abandoned all the places he entered to pillage and murder. At Tours, the Duke of Montpensier put to death a number of women who would not renounce the Calvinistic faith. Bourges, which had been besieged for some time by the young King in person, and by the King of Navarre, surrendered by capitulation August 31st, 1562; in spite of which several Protestants were cut down, and the remainder banished.

In Normandy the Huguenots were more successful. Morvilliers, the commandant of Rouen, although a Protestant, flung up his command when he found that the English were to be introduced into France; but Montgomery, the involuntary homicide of Henry II, marched through Normandy with a Huguenot force and took possession of its capital. Havre was occupied by 3,000 English early in October; about the same time a German force destined for the succor of the Protestants was beginning to assemble on the Rhine. A diversion was thus effected of the Catholic forces; the siege of Orleans, which they had been for some time carrying on, was converted into a blockade; St. André marched with a division into Champagne to arrest the progress of the Germans, while Guise proceeded with the main body into Normandy and laid siege to Rouen. Charles IX and the King of Navarre came to Guise’s camp to encourage the troops by their presence, and Rouen was taken by storm and sacked, October 26th. But Antony received a slight wound during the siege, which his own imprudence rendered fatal; he died November 17th, at the age of forty-four, leaving the field still more open to the ambition of Guise, who was shortly afterwards nominated in his place Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom.

On the other hand the Prince of Condé, having been joined by some German contingents (November 9th), marched upon Paris, and would probably have taken that capital had he ventured upon an immediate assault; but waiting for reinforcements under D'Andelot, and being amused with negotiations by the Queen-Mother, he suffered the opportunity to slip through his hands. While he and Coligui lay encamped before Paris at Montrouge, Arcueil, and Gentilly, the Parliament issued an arrêt condemning to death the Admiral and all his associates, with the exception of the Prince. The only affair that took place here, was a smart skirmish before the Boulevard St. Victor (November 28th). By the advice of Coligni, Condé determined early in December to retire into Normandy, to await fresh supplies of men and money from England; but on his way, having imprudently wasted some days in a fruitless attempt to seize Chartres and Dreux, he was overtaken by the army of the triumvirate, which had intercepted his line of march by taking up a position on the left bank of the Eure, at no great distance from Dreux. At this juncture the ferocious Guise, the experienced Montmorenci, the warlike St. André, are said to have dreaded the responsibility of giving battle, and sent to obtain the sanction of the King and the Regent. Catharine, with a bitter irony, expressed her surprise that three great captains should, on such a subject, ask the advice of a woman and a child, both overwhelmed with regret at seeing the extremity to which matters were reduced; she would give no opinion, and referred them to the King’s nurse! Guise was, in fact, unwilling to incur the responsibility of having the civil war imputed to the House of Lorraine, and affected to have no other command in the army than that of his own compagnie d'ordonnance and a body of volunteers. He seems to have always had before his eyes the fear of some future impeachment, and to have wished to be able to show that he had acted only by superior orders.

On the 19th of December, however, Montmorenci began the engagement by a violent cannonade; the battle was obstinately and bloodily contested, and it was only at nightfall that Coligni retired with his beaten forces in good order from the field. By a singular coincidence the leaders on each side, Condé and Montmorenci, were taken prisoners, and the Constable was also wounded in the jaw by a pistol ball. St. André likewise fell into the hands of the Huguenots, and was murdered after his capture by a private enemy; so that Guise became sole head of the Catholic party. Montmorenci was sent to Orleans, where, in the custody of his niece, the Princess of Condé, he quietly awaited his liberation. Condé was conducted to the Castle of Onzain, where, by Catharine's order, he was at first harshly treated and strictly watched; till policy dictated a milder treatment, in order to use him as a counter-poise to the ambition of Guise, who, after the death of Antony, even dreamt of eventually succeeding to the throne.

Coligni, who, after the capture of Condé, was elected by the Huguenots for their commander-in-chief, led the defeated army towards Orleans; and soon after, having entrusted the command of that place to his brother D'Andelot, proceeded into Normandy, where, with the assistance of the English, he succeeded in taking Caen. He then invested Rouen, and pressed it so hardly that Marshal Brissac, the commandant, sent a message for help to Guise, then engaged in besieging Orleans. Guise replied that he must first take Orleans by storm; but before he could accomplish this, he was shot by an assassin named Poltrot, February 18th, 1563, and in six days died of his wound, at the age of forty-four. He displayed great anxiety on his death-bed to clear himself from the charge of having authorized the massacre of Vassy, and his last words were exhortations to peace. Francis Duke of Guise left three sons : Henry, who inherited the titles and possessions, as well as the bravery and other qualities of his father, including his fanaticism; Charles, afterwards Duke of Majenne, of a totally different disposition from his brother; and Louis, who afterwards became a Cardinal.

Poltrot was apprehended and tortured, when he accused Coligni, La Rochefoucauld, Beza, and other Huguenot leaders of having incited him to murder Guise. The charge was not so clearly refuted as might be wished; but Poltrot varied in his confessions. Coligni appears by his own avowal to have given at least a tacit sanction to the deed; and after its completion, he offered up a solemn thanksgiving for what he characterized as one of the greatest blessings to France, to God’s Church, and especially to himself and his family. Beza admits having desired the death of Guise; and while the Duke was besieging Orleans, preached a sermon in which he described in glowing terms how glorious a deed it would be if anyone should slay the Duke in battle. It appears from a letter of Calvin’s to the Duchess of Ferrara that some of his followers had long contemplated the murder of Guise; and though Calvin himself dissuaded them from such an attempt, he was in the habit of beseeching God either to convert Guise, or to lay His hand upon him and deliver His church from him.

EDICT OF AMBOISE

The death of Guise altered the destinies of France. Had he lived to take Orleans and defeat the Huguenots, he would have enjoyed the power of the ancient Mayors of the Palace under the Rois Fainéants, and might probably have at length succeeded in placing his own family upon the throne. Catharine de' Medici was the chief gainer by his death, who now, after the extinction of the triumvirate, began indeed to reign. One of her first steps was to enter into negotiations with the Huguenots. To the Prince of Condé she held out the hope of the Lieutenant-Generalship of the Kingdom, again vacant by the death of Guise. She had previously offered it to Christopher, Duke of Würtemberg, who was in every way worthy of it, but he declined. No fact can show more strongly the distracted state of France than this offer of the lieutenancy to a foreigner. But Catharine neither could nor would promise the maintenance of the January Edict. As Condé wished to regain his liberty, and D'Andelot was hard pressed in Orleans by the royal troops, the propositions of the Queen and her Chancellor were accepted without waiting for the consent of Coligni; who, as well as the Huguenot ministers, was for continuing the war. The preliminaries of a peace were discussed between Condé and Montmorenci in the Isle aux Boeufs in the Loire. Their conference ended in nothing but their mutual exchange; negotiations were, however, renewed between Damville and L'Aubespine on the part of Catharine, and St. Cyr and D'Aubigne on that of the Huguenots, and a treaty of peace was agreed upon, the provisions of which were embodied in a royal edict, called the Edict of Amboise, drawn up by the mild and patriotic L'Hopital, and signed by Charles IX, March 13th, 1563.

By this decree the exercise of the reformed worship became in a great measure an aristocratic privilege. All nobles and holders of fiefs were allowed to celebrate it, with their vassals and subjects; but only those towns where it had been exercised up to the 7th of March. In Paris and its viscounty it was forbidden; in the rest of the French Kingdom with the exception of the manors of the nobility, it was allowed only in the suburbs of one town in each bailiwick.

D'Andelot, who had been in great danger in Orleans, was saved by the peace of Amboise. The Germans evacuated France; but Queen Elizabeth refusing to give up Havre, which place she professed to hold as security for the restoration of Calais, war was declared against England July 6th. Condé and the greater part of the Huguenots, anxious to expiate their offence in having called in the English, joined the royal army under Montmorenci; but Coligni held himself aloof. Havre was reduced chiefly by cutting off the supplies, especially the water, which produced a pestilence; and on the 28th July, the Earl of Warwick, the commandant, capitulated, just as the long-expected English fleet hove in sight.

In order to check the ambition of Condé, and put an end to his importunities for the Lieutenant-Generalship, Catharine, by the advice of L'Hopital, declared her son Charles IX of age (August 17th, 1563), although he had only recently entered on his fourteenth year. As the Parliament of Paris had displayed great refractoriness, and had refused to register the Edict of Amboise, this solemn act was performed in a Lit de Justice held in the Parliament of Rouen. The Paris Parliament, irritated by this breach of custom, sent a deputation to the Court to complain of the edict; when Charles, tutored by his mother, addressed to them a reprimand, the severity of which formed a strange contrast with the infantine tones in which it was delivered. “Know”, said he, “that the Kings our progenitors have not placed you where you are that you may be guardians or protectors of the realm, or conservators of our city of Paris; and I command you to meddle with nothing but the administration of justice. You fancy that you are my guardians; I will teach you that you are only my subjects and servants”.

Amidst these religious troubles, the French Court firmly defended the liberties of the Gallican Church. Jeanne d'Albret having forbidden the exercise of the Roman Catholic worship in Bearn, was cited by Pope Pius IV to appear at Rome within six months; failing which, she would incur, by her contumacy, the loss of her dominions, besides other penalties. At the same time were cited all French prelates convicted or suspected of heresy; as the Cardinal of Châtillon, the Bishops of Beauvais, Valence, and others. But the French Court addressed so vigorous a protest to the Pope that he abandoned the citation. Shortly afterwards, the Council of Trent having brought its labors to a close, Pius IV sent an embassy to Fontainebleau (February, 1564), to demand from the French Court the recognition of the decrees of the Council : a step which he had been prevailed upon to take by the Emperor, the Catholic King, the Duke of Savoy, and the Cardinal of Lorraine. We must therefore revert to the proceedings of that celebrated Council; and take a brief view of the history of the Empire after the resignation of Charles V.

RETROSPECT OF GERMAN HISTORY

The accession of Ferdinand I to the Imperial throne, and the refusal of Pope Paul IV to acknowledge his title, have been already related. The arrogance of Paul led to an inquiry into the Papal pretensions; the necessity for a coronation by the Pope was altogether rejected; and Pius IV, who had in 1560 received Ferdinand’s ambassadors with great distinction, consented, after a slight struggle, to acknowledge his title. When, in 1562, Ferdinand's eldest son, Maximilian, was elected King of the Romans, he refused to make the usual profession of obedience to Rome, contenting himself with assuring the Pope of his reverence and devotion; and thus was finally established the independence of the Empire on the Apostolic See, which had been virtually asserted by Maximilian I.

It has been related that Ferdinand, long before his accession to the Empire, had, in right of Anne, his wife, become King of Bohemia and Hungary. After the submission of the Bohemians at Prague in 1547, Ferdinand succeeded in converting Bohemia into an hereditary monarchy; and in 1562 he caused his son Maximilian to be crowned as his heir and successor in that Kingdom. It is from this epoch that we may date the decline both of the commercial and military spirit of the Bohemians. In the same year, with a view to consolidate his own power and that of his successor, Ferdinand concluded a truce of eight years with Sultan Solyman.

Since the truce of 1547, the German Diets had ceased to take any interest in the affairs of Hungary, which Kingdom was left to its fate as a thing which concerned only Ferdinand. In 1555 and 1556 Sigeth was fruitlessly besieged by the Turks, whose inroads extended into Carinthia. In the latter year the Sultan again established the family of Zapolya in the government of Transylvania; but Ferdinand retained Erlau and a large tract east of the Theiss. In 1559 Queen Isabella died; after which her son, John Sigismund, demanded from Ferdinand the title of King of Hungary, the district between the Theiss and Transylvania, and the Silesian principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor. A war ensued, in which the Turks sometimes took part; till at last, after long negotiations with the Porte, in the course of which Ferdinand was obliged to submit to the grossest indignities and insults, he succeeded in effecting the truce mentioned; a result to which the religious troubles in France not a little contributed, by weakening French influence at Constantinople. By this truce Ferdinand agreed to pay a yearly sum of 30,000 Hungarian ducats to the Sultan, together with the arrears, while Solyman engaged not to support John Zapolya’s son with his arms. John Sigismund was to retain Transylvania as well as the other territories which he held; but he did not concur in the truce, and made frequent irruptions into Ferdinand's dominions.

Germany, as we have said, was now in a considerable degree isolated from the general affairs of Europe, and the short reign of Ferdinand I presents little of interest, except the affairs of religion and the conclusion of the Council of Trent. Ferdinand, rather from political views than religious principle, was more flexible than his brother. He had a nearer interest than Charles V in defending Austria and Hungary against the Turks; hence he endeavored to conciliate the different religious parties in Germany, as a means of obtaining the help of the whole Empire and strengthening his hands against the Porte. Born in Spain and educated in that country till his fifteenth year, his principles, however, were orthodox; and, in fact, by the introduction of the Jesuits into Germany, for whom he founded a college at Vienna in 1556, he may be regarded as having inaugurated that reactionary movement against Protestantism which made so much progress in Germany during the latter half of the sixteenth century. He had for his counselor one of the most distinguished Jesuits of the age, the redoubtable sophist and polemic Peter Canisius, the author of the catechism still used by the Papists. Canisius became Provincial of the Jesuits in Upper Germany, and during the forty years that he directed their affairs they spread themselves throughout the Empire. But as Ferdinand’s political interests led him to conciliate and reunite the Catholics and Protestants, he endeavored to persuade the Protestants to submit to the Council of Trent, which, in conjunction with the Courts of France and Spain, he had induced Pius IV to reassemble. As the Protestants would not acknowledge the previous Tridentine decrees, Ferdinand endeavored to obtain the convocation of a new Council, to begin ab initio, but without success. He sent his own ambassadors with the Papal Legates Commendone and Delfino to invite the Protestants assembled at Nuremberg (1560) to attend the Council; who, however, contemptuously returned to the Legates the Papal bulls unopened, and denied the Pope's power to call such an assembly. The only conditions on which they would recognize it were: that the Pope should attend as a party and not as a judge; that Protestant divines should appear in it on the same footing as Catholic bishops; and that it should be held in some German town. But such demands were inadmissible. An invitation had also been forwarded to Queen Elizabeth to send ambassadors to Trent; which was of course refused. The German Protestants, however, had now begun to divide among themselves. Into the nature of their dissensions we shall not here enter. They were occasioned by the infusion of Calvinism, which had penetrated even into Saxony; and hence, while some of the German Protestants adhered strictly to the Confession of Augsburg, others proposed to modify that formulary with an admixture of Calvinistic tenets.

The chief of the German Calvinists was the Elector Palatine, Frederick III, who forcibly introduced that creed into his dominions. His son Louis restored Lutheranism; but, dying in 1583, he left a minor son, Frederick IV, whose uncle and guardian, John Casimir, reinstated the Calvinists. The two rallying points of these sects were the Heidelberg Catechism for the Calvinists, and the Formulary of Concord for the Lutherans, both of which were published in opposition to the decrees of Trent. These sectarian quarrels injured the cause of Protestantism in general, and promoted that Catholic reaction in Germany which has been referred to.

The Council of Trent reassembled in January, 1562, after an interval of ten years. The French Court had agreed with Ferdinand in demanding an entirely new Council; but this was opposed by the Spaniards, and was also disagreeable to the Court of Rome. The first meetings were attended almost solely by poor Italian bishops, the pensionaries of Rome, and thus the method of procedure was regulated in a way that rendered the assembly altogether subservient to the Pope. It was arranged that propositions should be initiated only by the Papal Legates, and that the decisions of the meeting should be submitted to the revision of the Pope; thus rendering the pretended Council nothing more than a Pontifical commission; especially as the votes were to be taken per capita and not by nations. On the arrival, however, of the Spanish and Portuguese prelates, and of the French and Imperial ambassadors, considerable opposition began to be manifested. The Spaniards, who, with all their bigotry, adopted an independent attitude, struck at the root of the Papal system by maintaining that the episcopal authority was not a mere emanation from the Pope, but of divine origin; and they showed themselves as ardent for reforming the Roman Court as for suppressing heresy.

The representatives of the Empire and of France were equally as warm advocates of reform, though not so zealous against the heretics. At first the French and Germans acted together. The Cardinal of Lorraine instructed the French ambassadors to second the demands of Ferdinand, which were principally: the cup in the Eucharist; the marriage of the clergy; the abolition of scandalous dispensations, pluralities, and simony; the compulsory residence of bishops; a reform in the use of excommunication; the erection of schools for the poor, the purification of the breviary; more intelligible catechisms; church music adapted to German, or French, words; and a reformation of convents. The Germans and French also required that the Council should be transferred to a German town; that the Pope should submit to the decrees of the Council, instead of revising them, together with other provisions derogatory to the power of Rome. On the other hand, the Spaniards opposed giving the cup to the laity, and the marriage of clergy. Nothing could be more unpalatable at Rome than the last proposition. The celibacy of the clergy was a main prop of the Papal power; and Pius IV had plainly declared that at the head of a priesthood who had wives, children, and a country, the Pope would soon become a mere Bishop of Rome.

The arrival of the Cardinal of Lorraine at Trent, in November, 1562, accompanied by a score of bishops, and a dozen doctors of the Sorbonne, gave the Pope great alarm. The news, however, of the murder of his brother, and then of the peace of Amboise, which arrived one after another in the spring of 1563, completely changed the Cardinal’s views. He now felt that the support of Rome and Spain was indispensable to his tottering House. Philip II also perceived the necessity of a closer union with the Pope, and he was, besides, displeased at the independence affected by his bishops. Thus the proceedings of the assembly were decided from without, rather than by the debates of the assembled Fathers. Pius IV had now only to overcome the opposition of the Emperor Ferdinand. Through the diplomatic skill of the Legate Morone, Ferdinand was gradually induced to withdraw his opposition, and as the French prelates also relaxed in their demands, the sittings of the Council advanced rapidly to a conclusion. In the last three sessions, several important reforms were carried respecting ordination, marriage, indulgences, purgatory, the worship of Saints, as well as regarding the discipline and morals of the clergy. Various abuses were suppressed, and diocesan seminaries were ordered to be founded. In these reforms Pius IV was influenced by his nephew, the saintly and austere Cardinal Charles Borromeo; the only occasion, perhaps, on which nepotism has been favorable to piety and virtue. The general character of the reforms admitted, was, however, such as should neither damage the power of the Pope, nor that of the temporal Sovereigns. So far from the object first contemplated being attained, namely, the limitation of the Pope’s power, his authority was, on the contrary rather enhanced, since the Council implicitly acknowledged the superiority of the Pope, by praying him to confirm the canons it had made, by giving him the exclusive right to interpret them, and by imposing on all bishops and beneficiaries the oath of fidelity to the Roman See. It is true that these advantages were gained at the expense of shutting out of the Church half the Christian world, and renouncing forever the idea of effecting a union by means of a Council; but, on the other hand, it can hardly be doubted that the decrees of Trent, and the amended state of the Church to which they gave rise, wonderfully contributed to promote a Catholic reaction.

The last sitting of the Council was held December 4th, 1563. Its canons were subscribed by 255 prelates, but more than half of these were Italians. The earlier resolutions during the Smalkaldic war, and those under Pius IV, are distinguished by the circumstance that, while the former were doctrinal, the latter were practical. In the first was established that system of dogmatic Catholic theology still professed; and the doctrine of justification, as then defined, separated forever the Roman creed from the Protestant. The second assembly was employed almost exclusively with questions of discipline and practice, and by the canons of reform the hierarchy was organized anew. The decrees of the Council were almost in every respect contrary to the demands of Ferdinand, who nevertheless accepted them. His claims for the Reformers had been dictated rather by policy than conviction, and even while making them he was taking steps to repress Protestantism in his hereditary dominions. He adhered, nevertheless, to the terms of his capitulation, and faithfully maintained the religious peace of Augsburg.

Ferdinand I died not long after the close of the Council of Trent, July 25th, 1564, at the age of sixty-one. By his wife Anne, the daughter of Ladislaus, who died in 1547, he had no fewer than fifteen children, twelve of whom reached maturity; namely, three sons and nine daughters. By a will dated August 10th, 1555, and confirmed by the signatures of his sons, he left to the eldest, Maximilian, Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary; to the second, Ferdinand, Tyrol, and the exterior provinces; to the third, Charles, Carinthia, Styria, and Carniola : thus imprudently weakening his dominions by dividing them.

Ferdinand had enjoyed a good education, the plan of which was drawn up by Erasmus. He knew enough Greek and Latin to read the classics with facility, and understood the Spanish, German, French, and Italian languages. He patronized literary men, and especially Busbecque, his ambassador at Constantinople, who has left an interesting account of the Turks. While the Spanish branch of the House of Austria was destined to lose part of its dominions through the intolerance of Philip II, the wise and moderate policy of Ferdinand I helped to fix the Austrian branch firmly on the Imperial throne, and to render it virtually hereditary.

The chief blots on the character of this Sovereign are, the extinction of the liberties of Bohemia, and the resorting, like the rest of his House, to assassination, as an instrument of state policy. Ferdinand I was in the usual course succeeded on the Imperial throne by the King of the Romans, his son Maximilian II; whom a little before his death, he had also caused to be crowned, at Presburg, King of Hungary. Maximilian, who was in his thirty-seventh year at the time of his accession, was fortunately still more forbearing in matters of religion than his father, and thus contributed to postpone that war which was destined during thirty years to deluge the plains of Germany with blood. Although educated in Spain under the superintendence of Charles V, and in company with his cousin Philip, who was of the same age, yet the characters of the two Princes offered a striking contrast. Affable in his manners, mild and tolerant in his disposition, Maximilian had early imbibed a predilection for the Lutheran tenets; a tendency which Ferdinand had thought it necessary to excuse to the Pope by explaining that it was through no fault of his, and that his son had received a sound Catholic education. After his accession to the Empire, Maximilian, from motives of policy, made a public profession of Catholicism, though he always observed the most liberal toleration.

 

CHAPTER XXII.

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW