History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 61

Another tedious week pa.s.sed by. Again, in view of the threats of an abrupt termination of the colloquy, the Huguenot ministers pet.i.tioned Charles to give them a patient hearing; reminding him of the distance they had come--some of their number even from foreign lands, relying on his royal word for a friendly interview with the prelates of his kingdom--in order to exhibit the inveterate abuses which the Pope and his agents had introduced into the Church. Other remonstrances of like tenor followed.[1144] At last, with great reluctance,[1145] the twenty-fourth of September was selected for a third conference. The obstinate resistance of the Romish ecclesiastics gained them one point.

The public character of the colloquy was abandoned.[1146] The large refectory was exchanged for the small chamber of the prioress. The king was not present. Catharine presided, and Antoine and Jeanne d'Albret, with the members of the royal council, replaced the more numerous a.s.semblage of the previous occasions. Instead of the crowd of prelates whose various and striking dress formed a notable feature of the colloquy, there appeared five or six cardinals, about as many bishops, and fifteen or sixteen theologians of the Sorbonne, laden with thick folios--the writings of the Fathers of the first five centuries, with which the Cardinal of Lorraine still professed his ability to confute the Reformed.[1147] Again the twelve Huguenot ministers were admitted; but the lay deputies of the churches were excluded.[1148] The discussion was long and desultory. Beza began by replying to the first part of the cardinal's speech, and showed that there is an invisible as well as a visible church, and that the marks of the true church are the preaching of G.o.d's Word and the right administration of the sacraments.

Not a succession of ministry from the apostles, but a succession of doctrine is essential.[1149] He was followed by a theologian of the Sorbonne, Claude D'Espense, who, after making the gratuitous admission that he wholly disapproved of the persecutions to which the Protestants had been subjected,[1150] attempted to prove that the Protestant ministers had no "calling" to their office, and that recourse must be had to tradition to explain and supplement the Holy Scriptures. When Beza was about to reply, the floor was seized by a coa.r.s.e Dominican friar, one Claude de Sainctes, who in a scurrilous speech went over much of the same ground, and, waxing more and more vehement, did not hesitate to a.s.sert that tradition stood on a firmer foundation than the Bible itself, which could be perverted to countenance the most opposite doctrines.[1151] An hour and a half of precious time was wasted by this unseasonable interruption, which had disgusted friend as well as foe.

Then Beza, after remonstrating against the long and irregular character of the discussion, proceeded, amid frequent interruptions, to set forth the views of the reformers respecting the extraordinary vocation which they had received.

[Sidenote: Lorraine demands subscription to the Augsburg Confession.]

[Sidenote: Beza's home thrust.]

But this portion of the debate was soon closed by the Cardinal of Lorraine, who, declaring that the doctrine respecting the Church had been sufficiently considered, proposed the question of the sacraments, a.s.serting that the prelates refused to proceed with the conference until this should be settled. He then demanded of the ministers _whether they would subscribe to the Augsburg Confession, which was received by the Protestants of Germany_. His object was manifest. He had long since resolved on adopting this course, with the view of either setting the French reformers at war with their brethren beyond the Rhine, or sowing dissension in the ranks of the Huguenots themselves. Beza, however, was not unprepared for the question. He replied by asking whether the cardinal was himself ready to give the Augsburg Confession his unqualified approval. The wily prelate parried this home thrust, and still persisted in his inquiry. Under these circ.u.mstances, could the reformers have relied upon the fairness of the conduct of the conference, their course would have been clear. But, aware that their distinct refusal to consider a formula which their opponents were not themselves prepared to adopt would be seized upon as a welcome pretext for abruptly breaking off the colloquy, Beza, after declaring that he and his brethren were deputed by the French churches to maintain their own confession, and that this doc.u.ment alone furnished the proper subject for debate, asked that a copy of the articles which they were required to sign might be furnished him for the deliberation of his fellow-ministers. The request was granted; and, as the session ended, a short extract was handed to him, which a.s.serted the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament, and its actual reception by those who partook of the holy ordinance.[1152]

[Sidenote: Alternatives presented to the Huguenots.]

[Sidenote: September 26th.]

[Sidenote: Beza claims fair play]

Two days later the colloquy was renewed. The delay, which had at first been a source of annoyance to the ministers, was now recognized by them as a providential interference in their behalf. What they had only surmised, they now learned with certainty from trustworthy friends.

Their _hesitation_ to sign the Augsburg Confession was to be used as a convenient handle for breaking up the conference; their _refusal_, for involving them in a quarrel with Protestant Germany; their _consent_, for causing their expulsion from the churches they had betrayed, or splitting those churches up into many parts.[1153] Theodore Beza opened the discussion by reading the reply which he had carefully prepared by common consent of all his brethren. Never had his oratorical skill been exhibited to better advantage. He began by showing the evident impropriety of introducing, as his opponents had done in the last conference, a discussion of the validity of the divine vocation of the Protestant ministers; for they had come here to confer, not to _officiate_--much less to witness the inst.i.tution of the semblance of a penal prosecution against them. The objectionable character of such a debate would be the more manifest, should he address any supposed bishop with whom he was disputing and who had inquired: "By what authority do you preach and administer the sacraments?" and retort by asking him in turn: "Were you elected by the elders of the church of which you are bishop? Did the people seek for you? Were inquiries first made respecting your life, your morals, and your belief?" or, "Who ordained you? How much did you pay him?" The answers to such questions would make many a bishop blush. Beza next reminded the cardinal of his promise to confute the Protestants by the testimony of the Fathers of the first five centuries. For a discussion based upon them the ministers had come prepared. But now he brought them a single article on the Lord's Supper, and imperiously said: "Sign this, or we will proceed no farther!" Even were the Huguenots prisoners brought before him for trial, they would not be so treated. Their very office required the prelates to speak differently, for the bishop must be "able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers."

[Sidenote: and an amicable conference.]

Then turning to the queen mother, Beza reminded her that he and his companions were there, not only for the purpose of submitting a confession of their faith, but to serve G.o.d, Charles, and herself, by laboring in all possible ways to appease the troubles that had arisen in connection with religion. To dismiss them without giving them an opportunity for an amicable conference would not be the means of allaying the prevailing disturbances; and those who proposed to do so knew it well. Were the handful of Protestants at Poissy the only persons concerned, there might, in the world's eye, be little likelihood that danger would result from treating them as their enemies desired. But it might please her Majesty to consider that they were here in behalf of a million persons in this realm, in Switzerland, Poland, Germany, England, and Scotland, who watched the proceedings of the colloquy, and who would be astonished to hear, as they would hear, that, instead of such a conference as had been promised, the ministers had received the tenth part of an article, and had been told: "Sign this; otherwise we will proceed no farther." What would be gained if the Protestants did sign it; for, did the prelates agree in the Augsburg Confession? If there was a real desire to confer, let persons be appointed who were willing to meet the Protestants, and let them examine together the Holy Scriptures and the old Fathers of the Christian Church, with the books before them, and let secretaries write out the results of the discussion in an authentic form. Then it would be known that the ministers had not come to sow troubles, but to promote accord.[1154]

[Sidenote: Lorraine's anger.]

The prelates were much excited when Beza concluded. His reference to episcopal elections stung them to the quick. Lorraine angrily accused him of insulting not only the _sacerdotal_, but the _royal_ authority, since it was Francis the First that had taken away the election of the priesthood from the people.[1155] Beza, replying, said that this very act was an evidence of the radical disturbance of the ancient order, when avarice, ambition, and unworthy rivalry between monks and canons rendered such a change necessary. Pressed again to sign the article submitted two days before, Beza persisted that it was unjust to endeavor to compel the Protestants to subscribe to that to which the prelates refused their own indors.e.m.e.nt.[1156]

[Sidenote: Peter Martyr and Lainez the Jesuit.]

The discussion was next carried on between the doctors of the Sorbonne and Beza and Martyr. The latter spoke in Italian,[1157] and won universal applause; but he was rudely interrupted by the Cardinal of Lorraine, who said that he did not want to hear a foreign language. A little later, a Spaniard, Lainez, the second general of the rising order of Jesus, who had just reached Paris in the train of the Cardinal Legate of Ferrara, begged permission to speak. Leave was granted him, and he indulged in an address much more remarkable for its coa.r.s.e invective than for its weight of argument.[1158] Not content with dissuading his hearers from listening to the Protestant ministers as persons already sufficiently convicted of error, he called them apes and foxes,[1159]

and advised that they be sent to Trent, where the Pope had convoked a free council to which they might have free access. He condemned the French for holding a separate council, and reprobated the discussion of topics of such importance as those now under consideration in the presence of women, and of men trained to war. After these gentle hints respecting the qualifications of the queen and his n.o.ble auditors to act as judges, he approached the all-absorbing question of the real presence--a feeble part of his speech in which we may be excused from following him. The remainder of the day was spent in warm debate, which continued until the approach of night. Just as all were rising and about to leave, however, the queen called to her Beza and the Cardinal of Lorraine, and adjured them in G.o.d's name to strive for the establishment of peace. A knot of friends gathered around each; the conference was renewed amid much confusion and noise; but the darkness soon necessitated an adjournment.[1160]

[Sidenote: Close of the Colloquy of Poissy.]

It was the last day of the Colloquy of Poissy. If anything more had until now been needed to demonstrate the futility of all hopes based upon an open discussion regulated solely by the caprice of the Cardinal of Lorraine, it was certainly furnished by the experience of the last session. Catharine, however, was loth to abandon the scheme from which she had expected such important results to flow. With her usual incapacity to understand the strength of religious convictions deeply implanted in the soul, she still hoped to secure, from a private interview of the more moderate Roman Catholics with a few of the leading Protestants, a plan of agreement that might serve to unite both communions. Some of her more conscientious advisers shared in the same sanguine expectations.

[Sidenote: A private conference.]

[Sidenote: The Roman Catholic champions.]

[Sidenote: The Abbe de Salignac.]

Five Roman Catholic ecclesiastics were chosen to confer with as many Protestant ministers. They were selected as well for learning and ability as for reputed moderation of sentiment.[1161] The Bishops Montluc of Valence, and Du Val of Seez in Normandy, the Abbe's de Salignac and Bouteiller, and D'Espense, doctor in the Sorbonne, were probably all believed to be half inclined to fall in with the reformatory current. Of Montluc and D'Espense, mention has already more than once been made. Bouteiller, it will be remembered, was the priest who had officiated in the Cardinal of Chatillon's episcopal palace at Beauvais, the last Easter preceding, when the communion was administered under both kinds, "after the fas.h.i.+on of Geneva."[1162] Salignac was a timid man, a fair sample of the "Nicodemites," who had proved the bane of the Reformation in France. For thirty years he had held, and to some extent--if we may credit his own words--professed the same doctrines as Calvin, continually exhorting his hearers to turn from an empty, formal wors.h.i.+p, to Christ as the only Saviour. Confessedly he had not rejected "_that false doctrine_"--for thus he did not hesitate, in his private correspondence with a Protestant, to designate the Romish creed--so openly as the reformers were wont to do; but he claimed to have won the universal approval of the best men around him by his attacks upon "Babylon," which he had approached sometimes "by mines," sometimes "in open warfare," according to time and circ.u.mstances.[1163] Since no violent opposition seems ever to have been made, no persecution ever to have arisen against Salignac, and in view of the fact that the conflict of the last thirty years had been sufficiently sanguinary and little calculated to rea.s.sure timid combatants, it is highly probable that the prudent abbe's subterranean operations greatly outnumbered his more valiant exploits. Well might the reformers, who knew that victory was to be obtained, not by burrowing under the ground, but by facing the perils of the battle-field, exclaim:

Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis Tempus eget.

[Sidenote: Conference at St. Germain.]

[Sidenote: A discussion of words.]

Theodore Beza, Peter Martyr, Angustin Marlorat, Jean de L'Espine, and Nicholas des Gallars, were appointed to represent the Protestants, and it was arranged that secretaries should be present at the conferences to note the progress made toward unity. The ten theologians met in the apartments of the King of Navarre, at St. Germain. Their conclusions were to be submitted to the Protestant ministers and delegates present at the court, and at the same time carried to Poissy for ratification by the still a.s.sembled prelates. Both parties were in earnest in seeking for common ground on which they might stand. Compelled by the instructions the bishops had received, to commence with the knotty question of the eucharist instead of adopting the more natural order of the articles of the confession of faith, the Romish party inquired whether, abandoning discussion for the time, both sides might not agree on the formula which had been drawn up and approved by four of their number on the twenty-fifth of September, or on some similarly moderate statement. The question, so far as the formula they referred to was concerned, was promptly answered by Peter Martyr. The Zurich reformer, somewhat apprehensive, as he had lately shown, lest his colleagues should, in their eagerness for accord, make something approaching a sacrifice of doctrine, greatly to their surprise drew from his pocket a paper which he proceeded to read: "I reply, for my part, that the body of Christ is truly and substantially nowhere else than in heaven. I do not, however, deny that Christ's true body and his true blood, which were given on the cross for the salvation of men, are by faith and spiritually received by the believing in the Holy Supper."[1164] A friendly but laborious discussion, not of ideas nor of doctrines, but of words, ensued. At length a statement was drawn up sufficiently comprehensive, yet sufficiently general to admit of being approved in good conscience by the entire number of theologians.[1165] But the prelates of Poissy promptly rejecting the article, the next day it was necessary to renew the deliberation. A second form of agreement was drafted,[1166] which the Roman Catholic deputies felt confident would meet with the approval of those who had sent them.

[Sidenote: Premature delight of the queen mother.]

[Sidenote: The article rejected by the prelates.]

[Sidenote: Their demand.]

Although the article itself was to be kept secret until submitted to the prelates, the tidings that a harmonious result had been reached rapidly flew through the court and was carried to Catharine herself. Beza and Montluc were summoned into her presence. In the excess of her joy at the prospect of the peaceful solution of a difficult problem, and of an issue of the colloquy which would greatly conduce to her glory and the firmer establishment of her rule, Catharine even cordially embraced the reformer, and bade him go on in the good way he and his companions had entered. Beza, not blind to the difficulties that still beset their path, replied that their highest desires were for truth and peace, but that a good beginning only had been made.[1167] The Cardinal of Lorraine, after reading the article, expressed the belief that the prelates of Poissy would be pleased,[1168] and for his own part seemed to regard the Protestants as having surrendered the entire ground of controversy to the Roman Catholics.[1169] But both queen and cardinal were soon undeceived. The a.s.sembled prelates rejected the modified article with scorn, treating with insult the deputies that brought it, as having betrayed their cause and played into the hands of the reformers.[1170] Under these circ.u.mstances a continuation of the conference would have been absurd. The Roman Catholic deputies, despairing of any good fruits from their efforts at conciliation, never returned; and the last vestige of the colloquy, on which such brilliant antic.i.p.ations had been based, vanished into thin air.[1171] The prelates themselves continued to sit for a few days. A committee of three bishops and sundry doctors of the Sorbonne, to whom the article agreed upon by the Roman Catholic and Huguenot delegates was submitted for examination, p.r.o.nounced it (on the sixth of October) to be incomplete, dangerous, and heretical. Three days later the prelates published a formal condemnation of it, offered a definition which they declared to be orthodox, and called upon the king to require Beza and his companions either to sign this new formula, or to consult the public peace by leaving France altogether. A long series of canons, in which the question of church discipline was touched lightly, and that of doctrine not at all--the paltry result of more than two months of sufficiently animated,[1172] if not very harmonious discussion--was at the same time given to the world.[1173]

[Sidenote: Catharine's financial success.]

From a political point of view, the a.s.sembly of the prelates at Poissy had not been unprofitable to the government. Alarmed by the radical projects of the wholesale confiscation of ecclesiastical property which had found no little favor with the other orders at Pontoise, equally alarmed by the possibility of being compelled to enter into a full and fair discussion with the champions of the Protestant doctrines, the wealthy dignitaries of the Gallican Church brought themselves, not without a severe struggle, to purchase exemption from these perils by a pecuniary concession which delighted the perplexed financiers of France.

They pledged themselves to pay, by semi-annual instalments, the entire sum needed for the redemption of the royal domain which had been alienated to satisfy the public creditors.[1174] But in return they demanded important equivalents. The first item was that the severe "Edict of July" should be made perpetual and irrevocable. This request Catharine and the council denied. To declare that odious law, which it had never been possible to carry into execution in several provinces of France, a part of the fundamental const.i.tution, would be a gratuitous insult to the Huguenots, and would precipitate the country instantly into the abyss upon the verge of which it was already hanging.

[Sidenote: Order for the rest.i.tution of the churches.]

The other demands of the bishops it seemed more practicable to grant.

They required that Charles should by solemn edict order the instantaneous rest.i.tution of the churches seized by the Huguenots. In spite of the earnest protest of Beza,[1175] the government (on the eighteenth of October) complied with the request.[1176] Within twenty-four hours after the receipt of this edict, all persons who had taken possession of churches were commanded, on penalty of death as rebels and felons, to vacate them, restoring whatever valuables they had removed, and replacing the images and crosses they had destroyed. At the same time the prohibition of the use of insulting language and acts was renewed, and both parties were bidden to place their arms in the hands of the local magistrates.[1177] Thus, to use Beza's language, was Christ betrayed, but at a much dearer price than that for which he was, centuries ago, sold by Judas--for sixteen millions of francs instead of the thirty pieces of silver.[1178] Having, by extorting the Edict of Rest.i.tution, succeeded in paving the way for renewed commotions, soon to culminate in open and widespread war, the prelates adjourned, with mingled satisfaction and disgust, toward the end of October, 1561.[1179]

[Sidenote: Arrival of five German delegates.]

The conference of Poissy had scarcely been definitely abandoned when five German Protestants appeared upon the scene. Three of these--Andrea, Beuerlin, and Balthasar Bidembach--had been sent by the Duke of Wurtemberg; the others--Bouquin and Dilher--by the Elector Palatine.

Early in the summer, the King of Navarre, anxious to strengthen himself by enlisting in his favor the Protestant princes of Germany, had expressed to them the desire, in which Catharine coincided, that some theologians--learned and pious men, and inclined to peace--should be sent from beyond the Rhine to take part in the adjustment of the religious questions at the Colloquy of Poissy. The Protestant electors, the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Duke of Wurtemberg, were unable, however, to agree on the instructions to be given to the envoys. While the duke, devotedly attached to the doctrines of Luther, was bent upon strongly recommending the adoption of the Augsburg Confession, the other princes could not acquiesce in his plan. The landgrave refused to throw additional difficulties in the way of the reformed churches of France, just emerging from a period of relentless persecution, and seeking for the public recognition of the right to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, for which so many martyrs had cheerfully laid down their lives. The Elector of Saxony distrusted the sincerity of the intentions of the French court. As for the Count Palatine, he himself had embraced the reformed theology, and could not be expected to urge the Huguenots to give up their own well-digested confession for one which they considered far inferior to it in all respects.[1180] And so it happened that, in consequence of a diversity of sentiment regarding both doctrine and policy, there was no general deputation sent to France, and the delegates of the two princes who complied with the invitation arrived at Paris after the colloquy--too late to do any harm, if not soon enough to do much good.

They were courteously received by the court. The Wurtembergers, in particular, were allowed frequent opportunities of explaining the merits of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Before their return into Germany, they were distinctly informed by Navarre that, while he recommended a closer union between the two branches of the Protestant Church, his own views accorded with those of the adherents of the Augsburg Confession; and that his only reason for delaying to subscribe to it was a fear lest this step might interfere with the execution of the union he desired to effect.[1181]

[Sidenote: Why the colloquy proved a failure.]

The Colloquy of Poissy had proved, so far as the objects contemplated by its originators were concerned, a complete failure. Instead of drawing the Roman Catholic and the reformed churches together, it had only widened the breach separating them. Instead of exhibiting in a clearer light the common ground on which a union might be practicable, it had rendered patent to all the antagonism which could not be cloaked by ambiguous phrases and incomplete statements of doctrine. It is certainly worth while to inquire into some of the causes of a result so unexpected to a great number of intelligent men, who had framed their antic.i.p.ations upon no superficial view of the subject.

[Sidenote: Catharine's crude notion of a conference.]

The crude notions of the court respecting the character which such a conference ought to a.s.sume must be regarded as one of these causes.

Catharine, while extending the most gracious invitations to foreign Protestants, was herself apparently undecided how to treat the Huguenots when they should make their appearance. Even if we grant that her explanations of the object of the projected colloquy, referred to on a preceding page,[1182] received their coloring from the fact that she was supplying her amba.s.sador in Germany with plausible representations wherewith to appease such irritated bigots as feared that the French queen intended to propose a grave discussion of the religious question upon its own merits, yet the entire course of the conference exhibits her inability to comprehend the nature of a fair debate of the matters in dispute. The Huguenot ministers and delegates were obliged to pet.i.tion that the prelates should not be permitted to act as their judges, and afterward to remind her of the promise she had given them to this effect. Even after the point had been nominally accorded, the most important questions respecting the conference were decided in the council, where _five_ cardinals and _three_ bishops had seats.[1183]

Under these circ.u.mstances it is not astonis.h.i.+ng that Lorraine a.s.sumed a tone of superiority which his relation to the debate by no means warranted.

[Sidenote: Character of the prelates.]

Besides this, the character of the a.s.sembly of prelates itself precluded the possibility of an adjustment. With the exception of six or seven, so insignificant were these ecclesiastical dignitaries individually, that, as a modern historian has well remarked, not one distinguished himself sufficiently to be named by any of the writers who treat of the conference. They were, generally, the younger sons of the most distinguished families in France, and had entered the church not from devotion, but in consequence of an immemorial custom which consigned to the episcopal dignity or to a rich abbacy the youth whom an elder brother debarred from entertaining the hope of succeeding to his father's dignities and possessions. Few of them had ever seen their dioceses save on some great festival; none possessed the literary or theological training necessary to qualify them for coping with the master-minds among the Protestants. Accordingly, each bishop had to come to Poissy with one or more "theologians," doctors of the Sorbonne, to whose better judgment and superior learning he was content to defer on every disputed point. There was little probability that a body thus const.i.tuted would consent to enter into a candid consideration of the differences separating the Roman Catholic and Protestant worlds.[1184]

[Sidenote: Influence of the papal legate.]

[Sidenote: The despondent nuncio, Viterbo.]

But the single event said by an eye-witness and actor in these scenes to have conduced more than any other to destroy all hope of agreement, was the arrival at court of the papal legate, Ippolito D'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara.[1185] Pope Pius IV. had long been watching the affairs of France with deep solicitude. If his legates, Tournon and Lorraine, had failed to alarm him by their reports of the progress of the "new doctrines," he could not but be troubled by the accounts which came from his nuncio in France, Sebastiano Gualtieri, Bishop of Viterbo.

Gualtieri, an experienced diplomatist, learned, eloquent--and not wanting in cunning,[1186] if we may believe his successor in office--had proved himself unequal to the duties of his present position, by giving way to extreme despondency. In the gay capital of France he led a wretched life, in constant dread of future disaster, and ceaselessly uttering lugubrious prognostications. To the Pope he announced that religious matters in France were desperate; everything was rus.h.i.+ng to ruin with ever-increasing velocity. The queen mother was unsound in the faith, although, from motives of policy, she dissembled her true sentiments. She favored a preacher, one Bouteiller, who was equally unsound; and she refused to dismiss him when admonished of her error. He begged the pontiff to recall him, so that he might not witness the funeral obsequies of the unhappy kingdom.[1187]

[Sidenote: Anxiety of Pope Pius IV.]