History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 59

[Footnote 1079: "Mais ceux qui sont extremement malades sont excusez d'appliquer toutes herbes a la douleur pour l'appaiser, quand elle est insupportable, attendant le bon medecin, que j'estime devoir estre un bon Concile, pour une si furieuse et dangereuse maladie." Letter of Catharine to the Bishop of Rennes, Aug. 23, 1561, _apud_ Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i. 727.]

[Footnote 1080: An incident, preserved for us by Languet, which happened about this time, reveals somewhat of Catharine's temper and of the doubts that pervaded the young king's mind. On Corpus Christi day, the queen mother, in conversation with her son, recommended to him that, while duly reverencing the sacrament, he should not entertain so gross a belief as that the bread which was carried around in the procession was the very body of Christ which hung from the cross. Charles replied that he had received the same warning from others, but coupled with the injunction that he should say nothing about it to any one. "Yet,"

responded Catharine smiling, "you must take care not to forsake your ancestral religion, lest your kingdom may be thrown into confusion, and you yourself be driven into banishment." To which Charles aptly replied: "The Queen of England has changed the religion of her kingdom, but no one gives her any trouble." Epist. secr., ii. 127.]

[Footnote 1081: De Thou (iii., liv. xxviii., pp. 60-63) gives the substance, Gerdesius (Scrinium Antiq., v. 339, _seq._) the text of this extraordinary letter. See also Jean de Serres, i. 212, etc.]

[Footnote 1082: From Hurault's letter of July 12th, to the Bishop of Rennes, we learn the date of the Cardinal of Ferrara's departure from Rome--July 2d. He travelled so slowly, however, that it was not until September 19th that he reached St. Germain.]

[Footnote 1083: "Que je n'avoys recu change depuis qu'il n'avoit voulu parler a moy de peur d'estre excommunie." Letter of Beza to Calvin, Aug.

25, 1561, Baum, ii. Appendix, 46. This long and important letter, giving a graphic account of the first days of Beza at St. Germain, was signed, for safety's sake, "T. de Chalonoy," and addressed to "Monsieur d'Espeville, a Villedieu." The Duke d'Aumale has also published this letter in his Histoire des Princes de Conde, i. 340-342. There are some striking differences in the two; none more noteworthy than the omission in Prof. Baum's copy of a sentence which very clearly marks the distrust still felt by the reformers of the upright Chancellor L'Hospital. After reference to L'Hospital's greeting, Beza originally wrote: "Force me fut de le suyvre, mais ce fut avec un tel visage qu'il congnut a.s.sez que je le congnoissois." From the later copy and from the Latin translation inserted by Beza himself in the collection of Calvin's letters, these words are omitted.]

[Footnote 1084: "Avec une troupe cent foys plus grande que je n'eusse desire." _Ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1085: Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, _ubi supra_. Beza, to whom Conde immediately afterward gave an account of the act of reconciliation, was not altogether satisfied with it. I have spoken of it as unfortunate, because it removed all the obstacles to the more complete union of the constable and the Guises against the Huguenots. La Place, 140; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 56.]

[Footnote 1086: "Estant arrivez a la court, ilz y furent mieux accueillis que n'eust este le pape de Rome, s'il y fust venu." Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 155.]

[Footnote 1087: Letter of Beza of Aug. 25th, Baum. ii., Appendix, 47-54; La Place, 155-157; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxviii.) 64; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref. i. 309-312.]

[Footnote 1088: "Nous confessons, dy-je, que panis est corpus sacramentale, et pour definir que c'est a dire _sacramentaliter_, nous disons qu'encores que le corps soit aujourd'huy au ciel et non ailleurs, et les signes soyent en la terre avec nous, toutefoys aussi veritablement nous est donne ce corps et recu par nous, moyennant la foy," etc. Baum, ii. App., 52.]

[Footnote 1089: "Je le croy ainsy, dit-il, Madame, et voila qui me contente." Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1090: "Sed illud totum ita complectebatur, ut satis ostenderet penitus se non tenere quid hoc rei esset. Agnoscebat enim se aliis studiis tempus impendisse." Beza, _ubi supra_, p. 50. The Latin version of Beza's letter of August 25th, made under the writer's own supervision, for publication with a selection of Calvin's letters (Geneva, 1576), contains a fuller account of the discussion than the French original actually despatched. See Baum, _ubi supra_, 45-54.]

[Footnote 1091: "Cardinalis testatus iterum non urgere se transubstantiationem." Latin version, _ubi supra_. "Car, disoit il, pour la transsubstantiation je ne suys poinct d'advis qu'il y ayt schisme en l'eglise." French original, _ubi supra_, 50, 51.]

[Footnote 1092: "Tum ego ad reginam conversus: 'Ecce inquam sacramentarios illos tam diu vexatos, et omnibus calumniis oppressos.'

'Escoutez vous,' dit elle, 'Monsieur le cardinal? Il dit que les sacrementaires n'out point aultre opinion que ceste-cy a laquelle vous accordez.'" Letter of Beza, _ubi supra_, 52.]

[Footnote 1093: Cf. letter of Beza, _ubi supra_, 47 and 52.]

[Footnote 1094: "Vous trouverez que je ne suis pas si noir qu'on me faict." Beza, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1095: "Bon homme pour ce soir, mays demain quoy?" Beza, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1096: "Le lendemain le bruict courut, non seulement a la cour, mais aussi a Possy, et jusques aux pays loingtains, que de Beze avoit este vaincu et reduict par le cardinal de Lorraine au premier colloque faict entr'eux." La Place, 157. So Beza himself heard the very morning he wrote: "Or est-il que tout ce matin il n'a cesse de se venter qu'il m'a convaincu et reduict a son opinion;" but he adds: "J'ay bons tesmoins et bons garants, Dieu mercy, de tout le contraire." _Ubi supra_. So also in his letter of Aug. 30th (Ib., 59): "Cardinalis fort.i.ter jactat me primo statim congressu a se superatum, sed a gravissimis tesbibus refellitur." "Ce que le Connetable ayant dit a le Reine a son disner, comme s'en rejouissant, elle lui dict tout hautement, comme celle qui avoit a.s.siste, qu'il estoit tres-mal informe." Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i. 312.]

[Footnote 1097: "Duodecima hujus mensis profectos esse in aulam octo ex fratribus nostris, quibus nunc accessit noster Galasius." Letter of Beza, Aug. 22, 1561, Baum, 2 App., 44.]

[Footnote 1098: Aug. 17th. Hist. eccles., i. 308, etc., where this doc.u.ment is given; La Place, 154; Letter of Beza of Aug. 22d, _ubi supra_, 45.]

[Footnote 1099: La Place, 154. "Ce meme jour selon nostre requeste a este accorde que nous serons ouys et que nos parties ne seront nos juges, mais il y a encore de l'encloueure qui fait que n'avons encore eu une reponse resolutive, laquelle on diet que nous aurons solemnement et en cour pleniere." Beza, letter of Aug. 25th, Baum, ii., App., 47]

[Footnote 1100: La Place, _ubi supra_. "Nous avons entendu a ce matin qu'on avoyt mis en deliberation au conseil, si nous devions estre ouys selon nostre requeste. Mais la royne a tranche tout court, qu'elle ne vouloit point qu'on deliberat de cela, mais qu'elle vouloyt que nous fussions ouys, qu'on regardast seulement aux conditions par nous proposees. Les ecclesiastiques qui estoyent presens out dit qu'ils ne vouloyent rien respondre de ceste affaire, qu'ils n'en eussent parle a leurs compaygnons." Letter of Francois de Morel, Aug. 25, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 55.]

[Footnote 1101: On the 9th of June, 1561, Hist. eccles. des egl. ref, i.

308.]

[Footnote 1102: Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 60.]

[Footnote 1103: "Eo deventum est ut necesse fuerit nos parenti Reginae testari statim discessuros nisi n.o.bis adversus hostium audaciam caveretur." Beza, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1104: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1105: Not unreasonably did the queen mother allege--and none knew it better than she--that even written engagements derive their chief value from the good faith of those that make them: "Que il estoit malaise mesmes avec l'escripture d'empescher de decevoir celuy qui ha intention de tromper." La Place, 157.]

[Footnote 1106: "Sans rien chercher que la gloire de Dieu, de laquelle elle estimoit qu'ils fussent studieux et amateurs." La Place, 157.

Compare the letter of Catharine to the Bp. of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561, _apud_ Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i, 733.]

[Footnote 1107: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, _ubi supra_; La Place, 157; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 314.]

CHAPTER XII.

THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY AND THE EDICT OF JANUARY.

[Sidenote: The Huguenot ministers and delegates.]

On Tuesday, the ninth of September, 1561, the long-expected conference was to be opened. That morning, at ten o'clock, a procession of ministers and delegates of the Reformed churches left St.

Germain-en-Laye on horseback for the village of Poissy. The ministers, twelve in number, were men of note: Theodore de Beze, or Beza, with whom the reader is already well acquainted; Augustin Marlorat, a native of Lorraine, formerly a monk, but now famous in the Protestant ranks, and the leading pastor in Rouen, a man over fifty years of age; Francois de Saint Paul, a learned theologian and the founder of the churches of Montelimart, a delegate from Provence; Jean Raymond Merlin, professor of Hebrew at Geneva, and chaplain of Admiral Coligny; Jean Malot, pastor at Paris; Francois de Morel, who had presided in the First National Synod of 1559, and had recently been given to the d.u.c.h.ess Renee of Ferrara, as her private chaplain; Nicholas Folion, surnamed La Vallee, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, now pastor at Orleans; Claude de la Boissiere, of Saintes; Jean Bouquin, of Oleron; Jean Virel; Jean de la Tour, a patriarch of nearly seventy years; and Nicholas des Gallars, who, after having been a prominent preacher at Geneva and Paris, had for the past two years ministered to the large congregation of French refugees in London. It was a body of Huguenot theologians unsurpa.s.sed for ability by any others within the kingdom.[1108]

So high ran the excitement of the populace, stirred up by frequent appeals to the worst pa.s.sions in the human breast, and by highly-colored accounts of the boldness with which the "new doctrines" had for weeks been preached within the precincts of the court, that serious apprehension was entertained lest Beza and his companions might be a.s.saulted by the way.[1109] The peaceable ministers of religion were, therefore, accompanied by a strong escort of one hundred mounted archers of the royal guard. After a ride of less than half an hour, they reached the nuns' convent, in which the prelates had been holding their sessions.

[Sidenote: a.s.sembly in the nuns' refectory.]

[Sidenote: The prelates.]

Meantime, an august and imposing a.s.sembly was gathered in the s.p.a.cious conventual refectory.[1110] On an elevated seat, upon the dais at its farther extremity, was the king, on whose youthful shoulders rested the crus.h.i.+ng weight of the government of a kingdom rent by discordant sentiments and selfish factions, and already upon the verge of an open civil war. Near him sat his wily mother--that "merchant's daughter"

whose plebeian origin the first Christian baron of France had pointed out with ill-disguised contempt, but whose plans and purposes had now acquired such world-wide importance that grave diplomats and shrewd churchmen esteemed the difficult riddle of her sphinx-like countenance and character a worthy subject of prolonged study. Not far from their royal brother, were two children: the elder, a boy of ten years, Edward Alexander, a few years later to appear on the pages of history under the altered name of Henry the Third, the last Valois King of France; the younger, a girl of nine--that Margaret of Valois and Navarre, whose nuptials have attained a celebrity as wide as the earth and as lasting as the records of religious dissensions. Antoine and Louis of Bourbon, brothers by blood but not in character; Jeanne d'Albret, heiress of Navarre, more queenly at heart than many a sovereign with dominions far exceeding the contracted territory of Bearn; the princes representing more distant branches of the royal stock, and the members of the council of state, completed the group. On two long benches, running along the opposite sides of the hall, the prelates were arranged according to their dignities. Tournon, Lorraine, and Chatillon, each in full cardinal's robes, faced their brethren of the Papal Consistory, Armagnac, Bourbon, and Guise, while a long row of archbishops and bishops filled out the line on either side. Altogether, forty or fifty prelates, with numerous attendant theologians and members of the superior clergy, regular and secular, had been marshalled to oppose the little band of reformers.[1111]

It was an array of pomp and power, of ecclesiastical place and wealth and ambition, of traditional and hereditary n.o.bility, of all that an ancient and powerful church could muster to meet the attack of fresh and vigorous thought, the inroad of moral and religious reforms, the irrepressible conflict of a faith based solely upon a written revelation. The external promise of victory was all on the side of the prelates. Yet, strange to say, the engagement that was about to take place was none of their seeking. With the exception of the Cardinal of Lorraine, they were well-nigh unanimous in reprobating a venture from which they apprehended only disaster. Perhaps even Lorraine now repented his presumption, and felt less a.s.sured of his dialectic skill since he had tried the mettle of his Genevese antagonist. Rarely has battle been forced upon an army after a greater number of fruitless attempts to avoid it than those made by the French ecclesiastics, backed by the alternate solicitations and menaces of Pius the Fourth, and Philip of Spain. Such reluctance was ominous.

On the other side, the feeling of the reformers was, indeed, confidence in the excellence of the cause they represented, but confidence not unmingled with anxiety.

[Sidenote: Diffidence of Beza.]

A letter written by Beza only a few days before affords us a glimpse of the secret apprehensions of the Protestants. "If Martyr come in time,"

he wrote Calvin, "that is, if he greatly hasten, his arrival will refresh us exceedingly. We shall have to do with veteran sophists, and, although we be confident that the simple truth of the Word will prove victorious, yet it is not in the power of every man instantly to resolve their artifices and allege the sayings of the Fathers. Moreover, it will be necessary for us to make such answers that we shall not seem, to the circle of princes and others that stand by, to be seeking to evade the question. In short, when I contemplate these difficulties, I become exceedingly anxious, and much do I deplore our fault in neglecting the excellent instruments which G.o.d has given us, and thus in a manner appearing to tempt His goodness. Meanwhile, however, we have resolved not to retreat, and we trust in Him who has promised us a wisdom which the world cannot resist.... Direct us, my father, like children by your counsels in your absence from us, since you cannot be present with us.

For, simple children I daily see and feel that we are, from whose mouth I hope that our wonderful Lord will perfect the praise of His wisdom."[1112]

[Sidenote: L'Hospital explains the objects in view.]

The king opened the conference with a few words before the Protestants were admitted,[1113] and then called upon the chancellor to explain more fully the objects of the gathering. Hereupon Michel de L'Hospital, seating himself, by Charles's direction, on a stool at the king's right hand, set forth at considerable length the religious dissensions which had fallen upon France, and the ineffectual measures to which the king and his predecessors had from time to time resorted. Severity and mildness had proved equally futile. Dangerous division had crept in. He begged the a.s.sembled prelates to heal this disease of the body politic, to appease the anger of G.o.d visibly resting upon the kingdom by every means in their power; especially to reform any abuses contrary to G.o.d's word and the ordinances of the apostles, which the sloth or ignorance of the clergy might have introduced, and thus remove every excuse which their enemies might possess for slandering them and disturbing the peace of the country. As the chief cause of sedition was diversity of religious opinion, Charles had acceded to the advice of two previous a.s.semblies, and had granted a safe-conduct to the ministers of the new sect, hoping that an amicable conference with them would be productive of great advantage. He, therefore, prayed the company to receive them as a father receives his children, and to take pains to instruct them.

Then, at all events, it could not be said, as had so often been said in the past, that the dissenters had been condemned without a hearing.

Minutes of the proceedings carefully made and disseminated through the kingdom would prove that the doctrine they professed had been refuted, not by violence or authority, but by cogent reasoning. Charles would continue to be the protector of the Gallican Church.[1114]