History of the Rise of the Huguenots

253

Rascalon, Catharine's agent, proffered the dignity in a letter of the 13th of March, and the duke declined it on the 17th of the same month. At the same time he gave some wholesome advice respecting the observance of the Edict, etc. Hist. ecclés., ii. 165-168.

254

"La Royne … y a si vivement procedé, que ayant ordonné que sur la foy de l'un et de l'autre nous nous entreveorions en l'Isle aux Bouviers, joignant presque les murs de ceste ville, dimenche dernier cela fut executé." Condé to Sir Thomas Smith, Orleans, March 11, 1563, Forbes, ii. 355.

255

Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 170, 171. Coupled with demands for the restitution of the edict without restriction or modification, the prohibition of insults, the protection of the churches, the permission to hold synods, the recognition of Protestant marriages, and that the religion be no longer styled "new," "inasmuch as it is founded on the ancient teaching of the Prophets and Apostles," we find the Huguenot ministers, true to the spirit of the age, insisting upon "the rigorous punishment of all Atheists, Libertines, Anabaptists, Servetists, and other heretics and schismatics."

256

The text of the edict of Amboise is given by Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franç., xiv. 135-140; J. de Serres, ii. 347-357; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 172-176; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. (liv. iii.) 192-195. See Pasquier, Lettres (Œuvres choisies), ii. 260.

257

Smith to the queen, April 1, 1563, in Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. Documents, 439.

258

Smith to D'Andelot, March 13, 1563, State Paper Office.

259

Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 125: "de expresso Regis mandato iteratis vicibus facto." Claude Haton is scarcely more complimentary than Bruslart: "elle (la paix) estoit faicte du tout au désavantage de l'honneur de Dieu, de la religion catholicque et de l'authorité du jeune roy et repos public de son royaume." Mémoires, i. 327, 328.

260

Elizabeth of England was herself, apparently, awakening to the importance of the struggle, and new troops subsidized by her would soon have entered France from the German borders. "This day," writes Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith, ambassador at Paris, Feb. 27, 1562/3, "commission passeth hence to the comte of Oldenburg to levy eight thousand footemen and four thousand horse, who will, I truste, passe into France with spede and corradg. He is a notable, grave, and puissant captayn, and fully bent to hazard his life in the cause of religion." Th. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, i. 125. But Elizabeth's troops, like Elizabeth's money, came too late. Of the latter, Admiral Coligny plainly told Smith a few weeks later: "If we could have had the money at Newhaven (Havre) but one xiii daies sooner, we would have talked with them after another sorte, and would not have bene contented with this accord." Smith to the queen, April 1, 1563, in Duc d'Aumale, i. 439.

261

Letter from Orleans, March 30, 1563, MSS. State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, i. 411.

262

Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 203. Theodore Beza was the preacher on this occasion, and betrayed his own disappointment by speaking of the liberty of religion they had received as "not so ample, peradventure, as they would wish, yet such as they ought to thank God for." Smith to the queen, March 31, State Paper Office.

263

Relazione di Correro, 1569. Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. 118-120.

264

It appears at least as early as in Farel's Epistre à tous Seigneurs, written in 1530, p. 166 of Fick's edition.

265

Froude, Hist. of England, vii. 519. Seethe courteous summons of Charles, April 30, 1563, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 404, 405, and Elizabeth's answer, May 7th, ibid., ii. 409-411; Condé's offer in his letter of June 26, 1563, Forbes, ii. 442. See also the extended correspondence of the English envoys, in the inedited documents published by the Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 423-500.

266

Froude, vii. 520; Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. Compare Forbes, ii. 422.

267

"The plage dothe increace here dayly, wherby our nombres are decayde within these fowr days in soche sorte, as we have not remayning at this present (in all our judgements) 1500 able men in this towne. They dye nowe in bothe these peces upon the point of 100 a daye, so as we can not geyt men to burye theym," etc. Warwick to the Privy Council, July 11, 1563. Forbes, ii. 458.

268

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 417-420; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. and iii.; Cimber et Danjou, v. 229; Stow's Annals (London, 1631), 655, 656; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. iv., c. ii. (i. 198-200); Davila, bk. iii. (Eng. trans., London, 1678), p. 89; Froude, vii. 519-528. Consult especially Dr. Patrick Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1741), vol ii. pp. 373-500. This important collection of letters, to which I have made such frequent reference under the shorter title of "State Papers," ends at this point. Peace was definitely concluded between France and England by the treaty of Troyes, April 11, 1564 (Mém. de Condé, v. 79, 80). Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, who had long been a prisoner, held to be exchanged against the hostages for the restitution of Calais, given in accordance with the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, now returned home. Before leaving, however, he had an altercation with his colleague, Sir Thomas Smith, of which the latter wrote a full account. Sir Nicholas, it seems, in his heat applied some opprobrious epithets to Smith, and even called him "traitor" – a charge which the latter repudiated with manly indignation. "Nay, thou liest, quoth I; I am as true to the queen as thou any day in the week, and have done her Highness as faithful and good service as thou." Smith to Cecil, April 13, 1564, State Paper Office.

269

Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 356, 357.

270

See the order of the fanatical Parliament of Toulouse, which it had the audacity to publish with, or instead of, the king's edict. It contains this clause: "Ce que estant veu par nous, avons ordonné et ordonnons que, en la ville de Thoulouse ni aultres du ressort du parlement d'icelle, ne se fera publicquement ni secrettement aulcun exercice de la nouvelle prétendue religion, en quelque sorte que ce soit, sous peine de la hart. Item, que tous ceux qui vouldront faire profession de laditte prétendue religion réformée ayent à se retirer," etc. Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 358, 359.

271

Recordon, Le Protestantisme en Champagne, 132, 133.

272

M. Floquet, in his excellent history of the Norman Parliament (ii. 571), repudiates as "une de ces exagérations familières à De Bèze," the statement of the Histoire ecclés. des églises réformées, "that in the Parliament of Rouen, whatever the cause might be, whoever was known to be of the (reformed) religion, whether plaintiff or defendant, was instantly condemned." Yet he quotes below (ii. 571, 573, 574), from Chancellor de l'Hospital's speech to that parliament, statements that fully vindicate the justice of the censure. "Vous pensez bien faire d'adjuger la cause à celuy que vous estiméz plus homme de bien ou meilleur chrestien; comme s'il estoit question, entre les parties, lequel d'entre eux est meilleur poète, orateur, peintre, artisan, et enfin de l'art, doctrine, force, vaillance, ou autre quelconque suffisance, non de la chose qui est amenée en jugement." And after enumerating other complaints: "Ne trouvez point estrange ce que je vous en dy: car souvent sont apportéz au roy de vos jugements qui semblent, de prime face, fort esloignéz de toute droicture et équité."

273

Chron. MS. du xvi. siècle, Registres, etc., apud Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 525-547.

274

Ibid., ii. 548.

275

The father of Agrippa d'Aubigné was, as his son informs us, one of the commissioners sent on this occasion to Guyenne. Mémoires d'A. d'Aubigné, ed. Buchon, 474.

276

What else can be said, in view of such well authenticated statements as the following? On his progress through France, to which reference will soon be made, Charles the Ninth stopped with his court at Troyes, where no expense was spared in providing tournaments and games for his amusement. Just as he was about to leave the city, and was already booted for his journey, he was detained for a little while that he might witness a novel entertainment. He was taken to a garden where a number of young girls, selected for their extraordinary beauty and entirely nude, executed in his presence the most obscene dances. It was two churchmen that are said to have provided the boy-king with this infamous diversion – Cardinal Charles of Bourbon and Cardinal Louis of Guise. Recordon, 143.

277

"Il est notoire qu'au temps du colloque de Poissy la doctrine evangelique y fut proposée en liberté; ce qui causa que plusieurs, tans grands que petits, prindrent goust à icelle. Mais, tout ainsi qu'un feu de paille fait grand' flamme, et puis s'esteint incontinent d'autant que la matière défaut, après que ce qu'ils avoient receu comme une nouveauté se fut un peu envieilly en leur cœur, les affections s'amortirent, et la pluspart retourna à l'ancienne cabale de la cour, qui est bien plus propre pour faire rire et piaffer, et pour s'enrichir." Mém. de Franç. de la Noue, c. ii. (Ed. Mich, et Pouj., 591).

278

"Quelque chose qu'il sût dire avec blasphêmes horribles – moyen ordinaire à telles gens pour prouver leur religion." Hist. ecclés. des églises réformées, ii. 458. To stuff leaves torn from French Bibles into the mouths or wounds of dying or dead Huguenots, as we have seen, was a diversion not unknown to their opponents. Of course, there is nothing astonishing in the circumstance that the invocation of Calvin's liturgy – "Notre aide soit au nom de Dieu qui a fait le ciel et la terre" – should have been a favorite formula for the beginning of a game of chance, or that the doxology – "Louange à Dieu de tous ses biens" – ["Praise God from whom all blessings flow."] – should have been esteemed a fitting ejaculation for the winner. Ibid., ii. 310, 431.

279

"'Double mort Dieu' a vaincu 'Certes'; entendant par ce dernier mot ceux de la religion qui condamnent ces juremens et blasphêmes." Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 507.

280

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 409.

281

Declaration dated Châtillon-sur-Loing, May 5, 1563. Mém. de Condé, iv. 339-349; and Jean de Serres, iii. 15-29.

282

Martin, Hist. de France, x. 164.

283

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.), 415, 416. Catharine had been the involuntary instrument of renewing the old friendship between the constable and his nephews, when, on Guise's death, she conferred the office of grand master upon his young son, instead of restoring it to Anne de Montmorency, to whom the dignity had formerly belonged. Three months later (Aug. 30, 1563) Condé drew up another paper, assuming the entire responsibility for all the acts of the Châtillon brothers during the war: "Acte par lequel M. le prince de Condé déclare que tout ce que M. l'amiral de Coligny et M. D'Andelot son frère ont fait pendant les troubles, ils ont fait à sa réquisition et par ses ordres." Mém. de Condé, iv. 651.

284

See Martin, x. 174, 175.

285

Davila, bk. iii. 92, and D'Aubigné, liv. iv., c. iii. (i. 201), both of whom mistake the place of the occurrence, supposing it to have been Paris.

286

Copie de la requeste présentée au Roy très-chrestien par ceulx de la mayson de Guyse, etc. Mém. de Condé, iv. 667, 668.

287

Ibid., iv. 668.

288

"C'est un vray moyen pour destruire et gaster en une heure tout le fondement de ce qu'elle a prins grand' peine de bastir depuis six mois." Mémoire présenté à la Reine-mère, pour empêcher que la maison de Guyse n'allât demander justice au parlement de Paris, de l'assassinat de François duc de Guise. Mém. de Condé, iv. 493-495.

289

Arrêt du conseil du Roy, par lequel il évoque à sa personne le procès meu entre les maisons de Guyse et de Chastillon, etc. Mém. de Condé, iv. 495.

290

"Ne parlez encore à personne," writes Catharine to M. de Gonnor (March 12, 1563), "des conditions, car j'ay toûjours peur qu'ils ne nous trompent; encore que le Prince de Condé leur a déclaré que s'ils n'acceptent ces conditions et s'ils ne veulent la paix, qu'il s'en viendra avec le Roy mon fils, et se déclarera leur ennemy, chose que je trouve très-bonne." Le Laboureur, ii. 241.

291

Not September 15th, as Davila states, nor September 24th, as D'Aubigné seems to assert; but his narrative is confused.

292

The two documents – address and edict – in Mém. de Condé, iv. 574-581.

293

Floquet, Hist. du parlement de Normandie, ii. 584. The entire scene is very vividly portrayed, ibid., ii. 561-586. Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 132; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 421-424; Jean de Serres, iii. 32; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. iv., etc.; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., liv. iv., c. iii. (i. 200-202); Davila, bk. iii. 90.

294

"Les Parisiens furent fort pressés qu'ils eussent à mettres les armes bas," says the metropolitan curate, Jean de la Fosse, under date of May, 1563, "mais ils n'en volurent jamais rien faire." Mém. d'un curé ligueur, 63, 64.

295

A town on the left bank of the Seine, four leagues beyond Meulan.

296

Mém. de Condé (Bruslart), Sept., 1563, i. 133-135.

297

Ibid., ubi supra. "Ces parolles là sont venues de la boutique de Monsieur le Chancellier et non du Roy."

298

Ibid., i. 136. Even after Charles's lecture and a still more intemperate address of Montluc, Bishop of Valence, when parliament came to a vote there was a tie. To please Catharine, whose entire authority was at stake, the royal council of state gave the extraordinary command that the minute of this vote should be erased from the records of parliament, and the edict instantly registered. This last was forthwith done. De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 426, 427. Bruslart (ubi supra, i. 136) denies that the erasure was actually made as Charles had commanded.

299

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 441, etc.

300

Letter of Card. de la Bourdaisière, Rome, Oct. 23, 1563, in which sentence is said to have been pronounced, the day before, on the Archbishop of Aix, and the bishops of Uzès, Valence, Oléron, Lescar, Chartres, and Troyes. Le Laboureur, i. 863, 864.

301

Monitorium et citatio officii sanctæ Inquisitionis contra illustrissimam et serenissimam dominam Joannam Albretiam, reginam Navarræ, Mém. de Condé, iv. 669-679; and Vauvilliers, Histoire de Jeanne d'Albret, iii. Pièces justif., 221-240. It is dated Tuesday, September 28, 1563. De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 442. The Card. de la Bourdaisière (ubi supra) merely says: "Tout le monde dit à Rome, que la Reine de Navarre fut aussi privée audit Consistoire, mais il n'en est rien, bien est-elle citée." Mém. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. ix.

302

It needed no very extraordinary penetration to read "Philip" under the words of the monitorium: "Ita ut in casu contraventionis (quod Deus avertat) et contumaciæ, regnum, principatus, ac alia cujuscunque status et dominia hujuscemodi, dentur et dari possint cuilibet illa occupanti, vel illi aut illis quibus Sanctitati suæ et successoribus suis dare et concedere magis placuerit."

303

Summary of the protest in De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 441-447; and Vauvilliers, ii. 7-17; in full in Mém. de Condé, iv. 680-684. "Quant au fait de la Reine de Navarre, qui est celuy qui importe le plus, ledit sieur d'Oysel aura charge de luy faire bien entendre," says Catharine in a long letter to Bishop Bochetel (ubi infra), "qu'il n'a nulle autorité et jurisdiction sur ceux qui portent titre de Roy ou de Reine, et que ce n'est à luy de donner leur estats et royaumes en proye au premier conquerant."

304

See the interesting letter of Catharine to Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, French ambassador at Vienna, Dec. 13, 1563, in which the papal assumption is stigmatized as dangerous to the peace of Christendom. "De nostre part nous sommes délibéréz de ne le permettre ny consentir," she says, and she is persuaded that neither Ferdinand nor Maximilian will consent. Le Laboureur, i. 783.

305

De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 447. Castelnau (liv. v., c. ix.) gives a wrong impression by his assertion that "the Pope could never be induced to reverse the sentence against the Queen of Navarre."

306

Le Laboureur, ii. 610, 611; Brantôme, Hommes illustres (Œuvres, ix. 259). We cannot accept, without much caution, the portraits drawn of the prince by the English while they were still smarting with resentment against him for concluding peace with the king without securing the claims of Elizabeth upon Calais. "The Prince of Condé," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, April 13, 1563, "is thought … to be waxen almost a new King of Navarre. So thei which are most zelous for the religion are marvelously offendid with him; and in great feare, that shortly all wil be worse than ever it was. Et quia nunc prodit causam religionis, as they say, διὰ τὴν ῥᾳθυμίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ ψυχρότητα πρὸς τὰ καλά, and begynnes even now γυναικομανεῖν, as the other did; they thinke plainly, that he will declare himself, ere it be long, unkiend to God, to us, and to himself; being won by the papists, either with reward of Balaam, or ells with Cozbi the Midianite, to adjoigne himself to Baal-peor." Forbes, State Papers, ii. 385.

307

"Le bon prince," says Brantôme, "estoit aussi mondain qu'un autre, et aimoit autant la femme d'autruy que la sienne, tenant fort du naturel de ceux de la race de Bourbon, qui ont esté fort d'amoureuse complexion." Hommes illustres, M. le Prince de Condé. Granvelle wrote to the Emperor Ferdinand from Besançon (April 12, 1564), that word had come from France, "que le prince de Condé y entendoit au service des dames plus qu'en aultre chose, et assez froid en la religion des huguenotz." Papiers d'état, vii. 467.

308

See Bayle's art. on Isabeau de Limueil; J. de Serres, iii. 45, 46; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 42.

309

Jean de Serres, iii. 50, 51; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 412, 413. Cf. Bolwiller to Cardinal Granvelle, Sept. 4, 1564, Papiers d'état du cardinal de Granvelle, viii. 305. See, however, the statements in chapter xvi. of this history.

310

His revenue from his county of Soissons was not 1,000 crowns a year, and he had little from his other possessions (Le Laboureur, ii. 611). Secretary Courtewille, in his secret report (Dec., 1561), states that the Huguenot nobles of the first rank were in general poor – Vendôme, Condé, Coligny, etc. – and that were it not for a monthly sum of 1,200 crowns, which the Huguenots furnished to Condé, and 1,000 which the admiral received in similar manner, they would hardly know how to support themselves. Papiers d'état du card. de Granv., vi. 440.

311

Mary herself, however, writing to her aunt, the Duchess of Aerschot (Nov. 6, 1564), represents the offer of marriage as made by Condé, both to her grandmother and to her uncle the cardinal: "à qui il a fait toutes les belles offres du monde." Papiers d'état du card. de Granv., viii. 481.

312

Jean de Serres, iii. 32, 33.

313

Ibid., iii. 45, 46; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 414; D'Aubigné, Hist. univ., i. 197.

314

On the upper Tarn, in the modern department of the Aveyron.

315

The very important documents which exhibit these facts at great length are in the archives of the "Mairie" of Milhau and in the Bibliothèque nationale, and were inedited until printed in the Bulletin, ix. (1860) 382-392. Among the names of the Huguenots of Milhau figuring here is that of Benoit Ferragut, apothecary.

316

Graignan, pour l'église de Someyre, à la Vénérable Compagnie, 19 juin, 1563, Gaberel, Hist. de l'église de Genève, i., Pièces justificatives, 153. "Et pourtant, je ne peux pas suffire à tout. Les paysans se baptisent les enfants les ungs les autres, ou sont contraincts de les laisser à baptiser."

317

Les consuls de Montpellier à la Vén. Comp., 30 janvier, 1563 (1564), ibid., i., Pièces just., 179.

318

I know of no more beautiful monument of Jeanne's courage and piety than the letter she wrote to the Cardinal of Armagnac, in reply to a letter of the cardinal, dated August 18, 1563, intended to frighten her into a return to the papal church. It was sent by the same messenger who had brought the letter of Armagnac, and it has every mark of having been Jeanne's own composition. Both letters are given in full by Olhagaray, Hist. de Foix, Béarn, et Navarre, 536-543, and 544-551; a summary in Vauvilliers, i. 347-362. The Queen of Navarre boldly avowed her sentiments, but declared her policy to be pacific: "Je ne fay rien par force; il n'y a ny mort ny emprisonnement, ny condemnation, qui sont les nerfs de la force." But she refused to recognize Armagnac – who was papal legate in Provence, Guyenne, and Languedoc – as having any such office in Béarn, proudly writing: "Je ne recognois en Béarn que Dieu auquel je dois rendre conte de la charge qu'il m'a baillée de son peuple." The publication of these letters produced a deep impression favorable to the Reformation.

319

Letter of Jehan Reymond Merlin to Calvin, Pau, July 23, 1563, printed for the first time in the Bulletin, xiv. (1865) 233, 234.

320

Olhagaray, Hist. de Foix, Béarn, et Navarre, p. 535; Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, i. 319.

321

Letter of Merlin, ubi supra, 237, 238; Vauvilliers, i. 320.

322

Ibid., 238. "Dont plusieurs, voire des grands, s'en allèrent fort mal contens, et singulièrement quelques-uns qu'elle rabroua plus rudement que je n'eusse désiré." Merlin adds that all now saw the excellence of his advice, for, had it been followed, "il y auroit apparence que la réformation eust esté faite en ce pays par l'authorité des estats; maintenant il faut qu'elle se fasse de seule puissance absolue de la royne, voyre avec danger." In other parts of France, as well as in Béarn, Jeanne's reformatory movements were looked upon with great disfavor. Upon a glass window at Limoges (made about the year 1564, and still in existence, I believe) she is represented, by way of derision, as herself in the pulpit, and preaching to a congregation of eight Huguenots seated. Underneath is the bitter couplet,

"Mal sont les gens endoctrinésQuand par femme sont sermonés."

M. Hennin, Monuments de l'hist. de France, Paris, 1863, tome ix. (1559-1589) 76. The statement that this and a somewhat similar representation, also described in this work, came from an old abbey, whose monks thus revenged themselves upon the queen for removing their pulpit, seems to be a mistake.