CHAPTER III.

REIGN OF FRANCIS II.

[1559–1560.]

Catherine de Medicis--The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine--St. André--Anthony of Navarre and Condé--Coligny and Andelot--Disgrace of Montmorency--Persecuting Edicts--Execution of Du Bourg--Discontent in France--Edict of Chambord--La Renaudie--The Meeting at Nantes--Tumult of Amboise--Bloody Reprisals--Castelnau’s Trial and Execution--The Duke’s Viands--Aubigné and his Son--Grace of Amboise--Regnier de la Planche--Renewal of Persecutions--L’Hopital made Chancellor--Edict of Romorantin--Religious and Political Malcontents--Abuse of the Pulpit--The Tiger--General Lawlessness--Huguenot Violence--Demand for a Council--Montbrun and Mouvans--L’Hopital’s Inaugural Address--Les Politiques--The Notables at Fontainebleau--Montluc and Marillac--Meeting at Nerac--Address presented to Anthony--The Court at Orleans--Arrest and Trial of Condé--Death of Francis II.

Francis II., husband of the beautiful and unfortunate Mary Stuart, had only reached his sixteenth year when he ascended the throne (10th July, 1559).[88] On the very day of his father’s funeral he gratified his mother’s ruling passion by assuring her that all authority should be in her hands, and that she should administer the government in his name. But she had to hold her own against unscrupulous rivals; and in those rude days the spindle had very little chance against the sword, unless it were aided by dissimulation. We shall see that Catherine met force with craft, proving herself at times more than a match for all her rivals. She soon found that she had no chance with the queen-consort, who used all her influence in behalf of the house of Lorraine. In a letter to her daughter Elizabeth she says: “God has deprived me of your father, whom I loved so dearly, as you well know, and has left me with three children and in a divided kingdom. I have no one in whom I can trust: all have some private end to serve.” Mary Stuart behaved to her with all the insolence of youth and beauty, calling her a Florentine shop-keeper,[89] and Catherine returned contempt for contempt.

It will be impossible to understand the stormy period upon which we are now entering, unless we know something of the parties into which France, as well as the court, was divided, and of the individuals at their head. There were in reality only two parties, but it will be more convenient to consider them as represented by the four houses of Guise, Bourbon, Montmorency, and Chatillon. The most formidable of these claimants of the government was the first--the family of Guise, to which Mary Stuart belonged on her mother’s side. The power of this house dates from the reign of Francis I. Genealogists delight to trace its origin back to Charlemagne, and even to Priam, King of Troy: with about equal truth in both cases. The chief of the family was Claude, son of that Réné, Duke of Lorraine, who defeated and slew Charles the Bold under the walls of Nancy. Being a younger son, he had gone to the French court in search of fortune, and the search was not in vain. He married Antoinette of Bourbon, a descendant of Louis IX., and dying, left six sons and four daughters, and an income of 600,000 livres, about equivalent to 160,000_l._ sterling. The eldest of his sons was Francis, Duke of Guise, now in his fortieth year, a skillful, violent, and unscrupulous soldier. He kept up an almost royal establishment; and when his steward represented to him that the best way of getting out of his pecuniary embarrassments would be to retrench his expenditure, and that he would do well to dismiss a number of poor gentlemen who lived at his expense, he replied: “It is true I do not want them, but they want me.” He was exceedingly popular in Paris, ever ready to listen to the complaints of the humblest citizen; and was beloved by his soldiers, for he never failed to recompense any remarkable exploit. After the surprise of Calais he appointed one Captain Gourdan to be governor, passing over many officers of higher rank; and when these murmured at the preference, the duke justified his choice. “Captain Gourdan is very useful,” he said, “to guard the place he helped to take, and where he left one of his legs during the assault. You have two legs, gentlemen, with which you can go and seek your fortune elsewhere.” He was cool in the midst of danger, brave as his own sword, and even his name was a terror to his enemies. At Terouenne, the Spaniards were checked in the very moment of victory by shouts of “Guise! Guise!” Above all, the family of Lorraine professed to be the champions of orthodoxy, and Duke Francis in particular seems to have entertained an insurmountable aversion for heresy in every form. He possessed almost every advantage that fortune can shower upon a man. He was above the middle height, with oval face, large eyes, and dark complexion, but his beard and hair were reddened by exposure. He was not a fluent speaker, although he could use the right word at the right time. He married Anne of Este, daughter of Renée of France, granddaughter of Louis XII., and first cousin of Henry II.--a connection which will partly account for the ambitious schemes of his son.

The other members of the Lorraine family were Charles, the cardinal; Claude, Duke of Aumale, who married Louisa de Brézé, eldest daughter of Diana of Poitiers; Francis, grand-prior of Malta; Louis, Archbishop of Sens and afterward cardinal; and René, Marquis of Elbœuf; besides three sisters, one of whom married, first, Louis of Orleans, and second, James V. of Scotland, to whom she bore a daughter, the unhappy Mary Stuart of Scottish history. When they were at court, the four younger brothers usually waited upon the cardinal at his rising, and then all five proceeded to pay their respects to the duke, by whom they were conducted to the king.

Charles, better known as the Cardinal of Lorraine, was one of the wealthiest ecclesiastics of the day. In addition to his share of his father’s large fortune, he possessed benefices yielding him a yearly income of 300,000 livres.[90] This prelate, whom Pius V. called “the Ultramontane Pope,” was a man of unbounded ambition, strong passions, great craft, and such fertility of expedients, that his enemies declared he must have a familiar spirit at his elbow. He was a graceful speaker, and of goodly presence,[91] but such an arrant coward, that (like Horace) he used to make a jest of it. Charles IX. gave him permission to be attended by an armed guard even to the steps of the altar, intermixing the smell of gunpowder with the odor of incense.[92] His character has probably been much distorted. He had enemies everywhere, and, in an unscrupulous age, slander and falsehood were ready weapons to damage a rival. He was not so bad as many churchmen of his time; for if he was profligate, he was not profligate openly. He kept neither hawks nor hounds; he sang mass often, fasted regularly, wore sackcloth, and always said grace before his meals. Claude de Saintes, who was in almost daily attendance upon him for sixteen years, speaks of the mortifications of his life, and denies his excessive timidity.[93] Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, extols his virtuous habits, so unlike those of other French cardinals; and Giovanni Soranzo, writing seven years later (1558) says: “He is not much beloved; he is far from truthful, naturally deceitful and covetous, but _full of religion_.”[94] The religion thus praised was one of forms only.

There is a letter of his in the public library at Rouen, addressed to the French embassador to the court of Spain, in which, speaking of his retirement to his diocese of Rheims during the season of Lent, he says: “I have nothing to write about but prayers and preaching, in which I am busied, instructing my little flock, whereat I assure you I take as much pleasure as I once did in the cares and toils of court, and I feel such sweetness and repose, that the desire to return to court is far from me.”[95] This “world forgetting by the world forgot” is too common with statesmen under a cloud to be taken literally. The cardinal was vindictive as churchmen (and women) alone can be, and so violent that he often marred his brother’s plans. The intoxication of prosperity had made him intolerable.[96] Nor did his religion prevent him from being covetous: he has been charged with robbing his uncle’s creditors by taking his property, and with appropriating the estate of Dampierre, which belonged to Treasurer Duval; that of Meudon, which belonged to Cardinal Sanguin-Meudon; and that of Marchais, which belonged to the Sire of Longueval. He also took up the mortgaged city of Chevreuse without paying for it; and rich as he had become through these exactions, he never paid his debts. He was a shameless pluralist, holding at once the archiepiscopal sees of Lyons, Rheims, Sens, and Narbonne, the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Terouenne, Luçon, Alby, and Valence, and the abbeys of Fécamp, Clugny, and Marmoutier. The last-named abbey he obtained by force. Hurant de Chiverny being unwilling to resign, the cardinal shut him up in the Bastille, where he died, and then took his abbey. In despite of his greediness the French clergy had a boundless devotion for him.[97]

Among the chief adherents of the Lorraine party were the Duke of Nemours, Brissac, and Jacques d’Albon, Marshal of St. André. The latter had been a great favorite with Henry II., who loaded him with presents. He was brave, insinuating in address, magnificent in disposition, greedy, and always in want of money. He received the order of the Garter from Edward VI., to whom he had been sent with the decoration of St. Michael.

Another competitor for the government was Anthony of Bourbon, first prince of the blood. He traced his descent from Louis IX., who left two sons, Philip III. and Robert: from the former descended the house of Valois, from the latter the house of Bourbon. Of this there were two branches--Vendome and Montpensier. Anthony was the head of the elder branch, but his younger brother, Louis of Condé, was its most distinguished member. The family had lost much of its wealth and influence--especially among the populace, who are always the first to take up and the last to discard a personal prejudice--in consequence of the treason of the Constable of Bourbon in the reign of Francis I., but they were still powerful enough to venture to aspire to the crown. Anthony, Duke of Vendome, as he was generally styled before his marriage with Joan of Navarre,[98] was frank and affable, but irresolute and deficient in moral courage; he was of noble presence, fond of dress, and the “mirror of fashion” among the courtiers. Brave in the field, he wanted energy in the council-chamber; he was vacillating in religious principles, and of loose private morals. Thus he became a mere tool in the hands of others, and though trusted by no one, was courted for the splendor and prestige of his name. His only aim in life seemed to be to exchange his petty nominal sovereignty of Navarre for a real kingdom no matter where.

Louis, Prince of Condé, now in his twenty-ninth year, and the youngest of the family, was the reverse of his brother Anthony. High-shouldered, short, ungraceful, and at first sight ill-adapted either for court or camp, he shone in both. He had shared with the Duke of Guise the honor of defending Metz, and had rallied the flying troops after the defeat at St. Quentin. From policy he seems early to have adopted the Reformed religion, though he took no pains to live up to its principles. The great Reformed party was to him a means of power and advancement. By his marriage with Eleanor de Roye, the richest heiress in France, he united against the Guises the powerful houses of Montmorency, Chatillon, and Rochefoucault--the latter being connected with the royal line of Navarre.

A third brother of this family was Charles, Archbishop of Rouen and Cardinal of Bourbon, a weak man, not overburdened with sense, who adhered to the Church of Rome. To the younger branch of the same house belonged two brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Prince of Roche-sur-Yon, both inclined to the Reform.

[Illustration: GASPARD DE COLIGNY, ADMIRAL OF FRANCE.]

But besides the Duke of Guise and Anthony of Navarre, there was a man of noble birth and large family influence--the representative of a great party in the kingdom--whom it was not safe to neglect. This was Gaspard de Coligny, Governor of Picardy, Admiral of France, and second son of the Count of Chatillon. The Chatillons were originally a sovereign house, and Gaspard’s father had been a marshal of France. He had married Louisa of Montmorency, sister to the constable, and thus became allied to one of the noblest houses in France. The eldest son of this marriage was Cardinal Odet, the youngest François de Chatillon, sieur of Andelot.[99] Gaspard, Count of Coligny, was born in 1518, and in his earlier years was very intimate with Francis of Guise (then Prince of Joinville). He was present at the battle of Renti, all the glory of which the Lorraine party wished to ascribe to Prince Francis. Coligny thought “he might have done better,” and this remark being exaggerated by false friends, the coolness already beginning to exist between them, and which was the work of Diana of Poitiers, gradually increased until they became totally estranged. The admiral was at one time a great favorite with Henry II. and the sharer of all his pleasures. He was Governor of the Isle of France, captain of a hundred men-at-arms (an expensive honor), and knight of the order of St. Michael. He had been made prisoner at the battle of St. Quentin (1557), and it was during the consequent enforced retirement from public life that he strengthened those religious convictions which he had first learned at his mother’s knee. Andelot, the younger brother, was the first convert to the new opinions. Made prisoner in 1551, and detained in the castle of Milan until 1556, he employed his long captivity in studying the works of Calvin: “Such are the sad fruits of leisure and idleness,” says Brantome with a sigh. He was taken with his brother at the siege of St. Quentin, but made his escape, and was present at the surprise of Calais. When he visited his vast estates in Brittany, he encouraged two Reformed ministers in his suite to preach openly wherever he halted, thus laying the foundations of many a Christian church in the north-west of France. Returning to the court where he was in high favor with Henry II., he was denounced by the Cardinal of Lorraine as a heretic and impudent violator of the edicts. To the king’s questions Andelot replied that he had never gone to the Pré aux Clercs, although the religionists did nothing there but sing the Psalms of David, and offer up prayers for the welfare of the king and the safety of the kingdom. He confessed that he had forwarded books of consolation to his brother the admiral, and had countenanced the preaching of a good and sound doctrine, deduced from Holy Scripture. “Your Majesty,” he continued, “has loaded me with such favor that I have spared neither body nor goods in your service, and I will continue to spare neither so long as I live. But having thus done my duty, your Majesty will not think it strange if I employ the rest of my time in caring for my own salvation. It is many years since I have been to mass, and I shall never go again. I entreat your Majesty to leave my conscience alone, and permit me to serve you with my body and goods, which are wholly at your disposal.” Henry II., who could bear no contradiction, flew into a passion, and seizing him by the collar of St. Michael that was round his neck, exclaimed: “But I did not give you this to use it thus--keeping away from mass and refusing to follow my religion.” “I did not know then, what it was to be a Christian,” answered Andelot, “or I should not have accepted it on such conditions.” Henry could contain himself no longer. He seized a platter which lay before him and threw it across the table, but it struck the dauphin; he then drew his sword upon Andelot, who was hurried away by the guards and afterward shut up in the castle of Melun. From prison he wrote to the church of Paris: “_Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain._” He also addressed a letter to the king: “Sire,” he wrote, “if I have done any thing to displease you, I beseech you in all humility to forgive me, and to believe that, the obedience I owe to God and my conscience excepted, you can command nothing in which I will not expose my goods, my body, and my life. And what I ask of you, Sire, is not, thanks be to God, through fear of death, and still less from a desire to recover my liberty, for I hold nothing so dear that I would not resign it willingly for the salvation of my soul and God’s glory.” He was alike unmoved by the tender entreaties of his wife, Claude de Rieux, and by the prudent advice of his brother the cardinal, who urged him to satisfy Henry II. if it were only by an apparent submission. At length, however, he consented to hold a conference with a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, and to hear mass in his presence, but without previous abjuration. Calvin, who had written exhorting Andelot to be firm, now reproached him for his weakness; but it was easy for the Reformer of Geneva, who was in a place of safety, and who had never been tested by the fires of persecution, to censure one whose faith was weak, and whose affectionate, loyal nature was worked upon by those who were dearest to him.

But Andelot’s elder brother, Gaspard, was made of sterner stuff. While in prison the Bible was his constant companion and chief study. Calvin, who had probably heard of his conversion through Andelot, wrote to him: “I shall use no long exhortation to confirm you in patience, for I have heard that our gracious God hath so strengthened you by the virtue of his Spirit, that I have rather occasion to return thanks to him than to excite you more. Only I would pray you to remember that God, by sending you this affliction, hath wished to draw you out of the crowd, that you may the better listen to him.” In the end, Gaspard adopted the Reformed creed, and became the idol of the Reformed party. In his wife, Charlotte de Laval, he found an affectionate sympathizer in his religious opinions, and a support during many an hour of distress. He was of the middle height, and well-proportioned; he stooped a little as if in meditation, and his countenance was always calm and serious, except on the battle-field, where (as we are told) his face lighted up, and he would chew the tooth-pick which he used to carry in his mouth.[100]

His intrepidity was remarkable, even among the fearless men of his day. “Do not go to Blois to the king and the queen-mother,” his friends said to him; “be sure there is some plot at the bottom.” “Yes, I will go,” he answered; “it is better to die by one bold stroke than to live a hundred years in fear.” He was not a fortunate commander, but was so fertile in resource, and so rapidly did he reorganize his beaten troops, that he was said to be more formidable after a defeat than before it.[101]

At the death of Henry II. the Constable Montmorency was at the head of the government, but he now learned that his influence had expired with his old master. When a deputation from the Parliament of Paris waited upon Francis II. to congratulate him on his accession, he told them that he had selected his uncles the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise to conduct the public affairs, and that to them they must apply in future. Montmorency struggled for awhile, but finding no support, he acted upon the king’s suggestion and retired to his estate at Chantilly. He was deprived of the high-stewardship of the household, and the office was conferred on the Duke of Guise, who, besides assuming the war department, was lord chamberlain and master of the hounds. The department of finance was assigned to the cardinal, and thus the two brothers disposed of all France. “Not a crown could be spent or a soldier moved,” says Buchanan, “without their consent.”[102] Catherine sympathized with Montmorency in his disgrace. In a letter to him she says: “I very much wish your health might permit you to remain at court; for then I believe things would be better conducted than now, and that you would aid me to deliver the king from tutelage, for you have always desired that your master should be obeyed by all his subjects.”

The constable, foreseeing the change that was likely to take place in the new reign, had profited by the last few days of the late king’s life, to urge Anthony of Navarre to come to court and assert his rights as prince of the blood to be one of the new council. A meeting of the chiefs of the Bourbon, or opposition, party was accordingly summoned at Vendome to decide on the line of conduct to be pursued. Condé, Coligny, Andelot, the Vidame of Chartres (Francis of Vendome), and Prince Porcien, all relations and friends, attended the summons. In the interval the Guises had been installed in office, and the question now arose, how their government should be resisted. Condé, Andelot, and the Vidame were for war; the admiral advised delay, as the queen-mother would be sure to join them, if she found securities on their side, and in that case the government must fall. Moderate counsels prevailed, and Anthony, after much vacillation, started for the court; but Francis II. refused to see him except in the presence of his ministers, who offered him every indignity. At length Condé joined him, and instilling some of his own spirit into his brother, urged him to assert his claim. It was granted after some little demur; but he was too much in the way, and to get rid of him honorably he was commissioned to escort the Princess Elizabeth to Spain. He fell into the trap so cunningly laid for him, and the Guises were once more sole masters. Catherine was still ostensibly consulted, and the royal edicts continued to run in this form: “It being the good pleasure of my lady the queen-mother, We also approving the things which she advises, are content and command that,” etc.

Whatever little influence she possessed was exerted to drive her late rival Diana from court, and force her to disgorge much of her ill-gotten wealth. At her instance, the king wrote to the fallen favorite: “That in consequence of her evil influence (mali officii) over the late king his father, she deserved severe punishment; but, in his royal clemency, he would trouble her no farther, but she must return to him all the jewels that had been given her by the king his father.”[103]

The accession of the young king produced no amelioration in the condition of the Lutherans. “In the midst of all these great matters and business,” writes Throckmorton, “they here do not stay to make persecution and sacrifice of poor souls. The 12th of this month [July] two men and one woman were executed for religion.” This was a remnant of the last reign. That the new reign would not be more tolerant was shown by a proclamation issued the next day, “by sound of trumpet, that all such as should speak either against the Church or the religion now used in France, should be brought before the several bishops, and they to do execution upon them.”[104] The edict of Villars-Cotteret (4th September) forbade all “unlawful” meetings, whether by night or by day; the houses in which such meetings were held were to be pulled down, and the proprietors held to bail for their future good behavior. Another edict (that of Blois, November, 1559) punished all who attended the assemblies with death “without hope of pardon or mitigation.” By other decrees (13th November) a reward of 100 crowns and a free pardon were offered to any person who should give information of a secret meeting. Nor were these severe measures confined to Paris. On 23d September, 1559, the magistrates of Poitiers issued an order forbidding religious assemblies, enjoining all strangers to leave the town in twenty-four hours, and innkeepers to send in lists of the lodgers in their houses. There was to be no preaching in public or private, the citizens were to give neither fire nor water to the pastors whom any body might arrest, they were to be tried for sedition, and the lightest penalty was confiscation of goods.[105] The result was that the country was overrun with spies and informers, and the charge of heresy was often made the means of gratifying private revenge.

Meanwhile neither Henry’s death nor the assassination of President Minard by a man named Stuart,[106] had any power to suspend the trial of Du Bourg. He made use of all the forms of the court to find some loop-hole of escape, and lodged appeal after appeal, all of which were decided against him. At length, on the 23d of December, 1559, the long contest was brought to an end.[107] After sentence of death had been delivered, he said: “I am sent to the stake, because I will not confess that justification, grace, and sanctification are to be found elsewhere than in Christ. This is the cause of my death, that I have embraced the pure doctrine of the Gospel. Extinguish your fires and return unto the Lord with real newness of heart, that your sins may be blotted out. Let the wicked man forsake his way and turn unto the Lord. Think upon these things; I am going to my death.” So great were the apprehensions of the court of an attempt at rescue, that the streets were barricaded and lined with armed men, and nearly 600 soldiers were stationed round the Grève, the Tyburn of those days. Du Bourg met his fate like a Christian hero: on reaching the place of execution he said: “Six feet of earth for my body, and the boundless heaven for my soul, are the only possession I shall soon have.” Then turning to the spectators he said: “I am going to die, not because I am a thief and a murderer, but because I love the Gospel. I rejoice to give my life in so good a cause.” His last words were: “My God, my God, forsake me not, lest I forsake thee.” The executioner then adjusted the rope round his neck, uttered the terrible formula: _Messire le roi vous salue_, and Anne du Bourg was a corpse. His lifeless body was afterward burned to ashes. The royal historiographer, who rarely spares a heretic, writes amplifying the words of the centurion at the foot of the cross. “His execution inspired many persons with the conviction that the faith possessed by so good a man could not be wrong.”[108] Florimond de Remond, the historian of heresy, and at that time a young man, was an eye-witness of Du Bourg’s death. “We burst into tears (he says) in our colleges on returning from the execution, and pleaded his cause after his decease, cursing those unrighteous judges, who had so unjustly condemned him. His preaching at the gallows did more evil than a hundred ministers could have done.”[109] Chandieu, pastor of the church of Paris, shows us how it was that these executions made so many converts. “Most people like what they see hated with such extreme hatred. They think themselves fortunate in knowing what leads others to the gibbet, and return home from the public places edified by the constancy of those whom they have themselves reduced to ashes.”[110]

It is not necessary to dwell upon the sufferings or to count up the number of the victims. Regnier de la Planche describes from personal knowledge the lawless state of the capital. “From August to March there was nothing but arrests and imprisonments, sacking of houses, proclamations of outlawry, and executions of the members of the religion with cruel torments.”[111] Numbers hastened to escape from Paris, and sold their goods to procure the means of flight. The streets were filled with carts laden with furniture, the houses were abandoned to plunderers, the magistrates conniving at the wrong, so that “the poor became rich and the rich poor.” We need not point out what an incentive this was to denunciation, and how often men must have been condemned as heretics whose only fault was their wealth, or their having offended some neighbor. A remarkable passage from Theodore Beza shows how wide and general was the ruin caused by this terrorism. “Poor little children [the children of martyred Reformers], who had no bed but the flag-stones, went crying piteously through the streets with hunger, and yet no one dared relieve them, for fear they should be accused of heresy. So that they were less cared for than dogs.” The pettiest vexations were employed against the Reformers. Crosses and images, with tapers always burning before them, were set up at the corner of every street, and round them gathered a crowd of noisy worshipers, singing, praying, and beating their breasts. If any one refused to take off his hat as he passed, or to put money into the alms-box before the shrine, some dirty priest or monk would raise the cry of “heretic,” and the poor Reformer would be pelted, beaten, and perhaps dragged through the mire to prison. “Death was made a carnival,” says an eloquent Frenchman. It was indeed a show in which the mob--and the same mob reappeared in 1792--feasted their eyes on the sufferings of the Protestants, and often would not allow them to be strangled before they were burned, lest their agonies should be diminished. One Barbeville was thus tortured contrary to the sentence condemning him to be hanged first; but at the same time they rescued a thief from the gallows, “as if they desired to condemn Christ and deliver Barabbas.” To call a man “Lutheran” was to doom him to certain death, often too without any form of justice. By this lynch law many a man worked out his own private revenge: the debtor paid his creditor.[112] Even children dipped their hands in the martyrs’ blood and boasted of it.

The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis had left a number of soldiers of every rank without employment and without resources. There was a public debt of forty-eight million livres, the interest of which was paid with difficulty; the treasury was empty, and there were no ready means of filling it. Perhaps the persecution of the heretics, which was always attended with confiscation of property, may not have been entirely unconnected with the financial difficulties of the royal household. But there certainly was no money, and when the disbanded soldiers applied to the Cardinal of Lorraine for their arrears of pay, he not only threatened to hang them, but erected two gibbets before the gate of the palace of St. Germains, or, as others say, of Fontainebleau. It was a threat as unwise as it was cruel, and nearly cost the Guises very dear. The malcontent soldiery joined the persecuted Huguenots--each party feeling a common hatred against the “Lorrainers,” and resolved to get rid of their common enemy. It has been asserted, but without any solid grounds, that Catherine looked favorably on this coalition, she being equally desirous of freeing herself from both duke and cardinal. But, whatever she may have suspected, she certainly knew nothing of what was actually preparing. In these humaner and more civilized days, obnoxious ministers and administrators are got rid of by dismissal, or by a vote in Parliament: in ruder times they were removed by revolt or assassination. In the middle of the sixteenth century the government of France was a despotism moderated by the dagger. Even within a month of the death of Henry II. a union of the malcontents was meditated, the Reformed only holding back until they should be assured of its lawfulness. They consulted Calvin, who declared that “it would be better they should all perish a hundred times over rather than expose the name of Christianity and of the Gospel to the disgrace of rebellion and bloodshed.” They were more successful with some German divines, who thought “they might lawfully oppose the usurpation of the Guises, even with arms, if the princes of the blood, their lawful magistrates by birth, or even one of them, should be at their head.”

The discontent increased and grew bolder every day. “We will go and complain to the king,” said the oppressed peasantry. As early as the 15th November, 1559, Killigrew wrote to Queen Elizabeth: “The king the last day being on hunting, was (for what cause or upon what occasion we know not) in such fear, as he was forced to leave his pastime, and to leave the hounds uncoupled, and return to the court [at Blois]. Whereupon there was commandment given to the Scottish guard to wear jackets of mail and pistols.”[113] And writing again at the end of the year (29th December), he adds: “It is evident that the discontent has reached a point when something desperate may be expected.” The Guises knew this, and being conscious of the weak foundation on which their authority rested, and fearing an insurrection, they forbade the carrying of arms and the wearing of any kind of dress favorable to the concealment of weapons.[114] At that time the ordinary cloak had no sleeve, and reached to the middle of the calf of the leg, and the large trunk hose were more than an ell and a half wide. This injunction seems to have been binding only on the Protestants, and was intended to prevent them from protecting themselves. That they sometimes did this very effectually is proved by a little incident recorded by Killigrew. Seventeen persons had been arrested at Blois “for the Word’s sake,” and committed to the sergeants to be taken to Orleans for trial; but on the road their escort was attacked by sixty men on horseback, who set them all at liberty.

Although the Ordinance of Chambord (17th December, 1559), by facilitating the trial of heretics and condemning to death all who sheltered them, seemed intended to drive the Reformed to despair, they as yet entertained no serious thoughts of rebellion. There were not wanting men of their own class who preached the doctrine of resistance,[115] yet none of the higher orders came forward as their leaders. Without such champions they would be little better than an undisciplined mob. At last, however, they found the man they wanted in Bary de la Renaudie, a gentleman of a good family in Perigord, and a soldier of some reputation--one of those daring men who always spring up in troublous times. At one period attached to Francis of Guise, who had helped him to escape from prison, he became his most violent enemy in consequence of the duke’s barbarous cruelty to Gaspard de Heu, who was allied to him by marriage.[116] Probably it was this enmity which made him renounce his religion and join the Reformers. He was just the man for getting up a conspiracy, and by his ability and address soon won over great numbers in Switzerland as well as in France. He constantly asserted that Calvin and Coligny approved of the design, and that the Prince of Condé would declare himself at the proper opportunity. As regards the two former, the statement is incorrect; but Condé appears to have played an undecided part, “letting _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_.”[117] The first meeting of the conspirators was held at Nantes in February. It was a remote place, and as the Parliament of Brittany was then assembled, their numbers would not be noticed. In their articles or bond of agreement they swore to respect the person of the king, but never to lay down their arms until they had driven the Guises from power, brought them to trial (if not worse),[118] and procured the suspension of every edict, both old and new, against the Reformed, pending the assembly of the States-General. Their plan was for each gentleman or captain, of whom there were twenty, to collect a body of troops in his own district, and so to arrange their march that they should all arrive at Blois at the same time. The 6th of March was the appointed day, afterward changed to the 16th, when they hoped to find the Guises unprotected. It was an absurd scheme, and could hardly fail to miscarry, even if it had not been frustrated at the very outset by a circumstance which seems never to have entered into the minds of the conspirators. The court removed from the open town of Blois to the strong castle of Amboise on the Loire, in accordance with arrangements which had been made some time before.[119] That old royal residence had been forsaken by the court since the death of Charles VIII. Its massive walls still tower boldly on the heights above the river, and the cheerful little town clusters at their feet, as if for protection. The Guises accompanied, or rather followed, the king in perfect security: they did not so much as know that La Renaudie was in the kingdom. They had heard rumors of plots, and warning letters had been sent them from Spain, Italy, Germany, and Savoy; but nothing reached them in a definite form until some days after their arrival at Amboise, when one of La Renaudie’s friends[120] betrayed him to the Cardinal of Lorraine. “The duke and the cardinal have discovered a conspiracy _against themselves_, which they have bruited (to make the matter more odious) to be meant only against the king; whereupon they are in such fear as themselves do wear privy-coats [of mail], and are in the night guarded with pistoliers and men in arms.

... On the 6th they watched all night long in the court, and the gates of the town were kept shut.”[121] The cardinal was indeed thoroughly frightened; but the duke, acting with great promptitude, strengthened the garrison by troops hastily drawn together from every quarter. Still the Guises were by no means free from apprehension, and Throckmorton describes the condition of the little town in the middle of March: “The 17th, in the morning, about four of the clock, there arrived a company of 150 horsemen well appointed, who approached the court gates and shot off their pistolets at the church of the Bonhommes. Whereupon there was such an alarm and running up and down in the court, as if the enemies being encamped about them had sought to make an entry into the castle; and there was crying ‘To horse! to horse!’ and a watch-word given by shooting a harquebus that all men should be in readiness, and the drum was striking. And this continued an hour and a half.” Sixty gentlemen had bound themselves by a solemn oath to penetrate into Amboise during the night, thirty of whom were to slip into the castle, and open one of the gates to the other conspirators. But the duke was on the watch, and had that gate walled up. Detachments of troops were stationed on the roads leading to the town and along the banks of the Loire, by which the various bands, coming up and ignorant of what had happened, were captured or cut to pieces. In one of these encounters La Renaudie was killed; his body was quartered and exposed at the four corners of the bridge.

The Duke of Guise, who, so long as there appeared to be any danger, had treated his prisoners with no undue severity, soon felt himself strong enough to wreak a ferocious vengeance on his enemies. He and his brother the cardinal, in the intoxication of their triumph, indulged in excesses of murder that can hardly find a parallel except in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, or the horrors of the French Revolution. The streets of Amboise ran with blood; and when the public executioners were wearied with decapitating so many victims, the remainder were bound hand and foot and thrown into the river, thus anticipating the frightful Noyades of 1793.[122] Throckmorton writes: “This heat caused upon a sudden a sharp determination to minister justice. The two men taken were the same forenoon hanged, and two others for company; and afterward the same day divers were taken, and in the evening nine more were hanged: all which died very assuredly and constantly for religion, in singing of psalms. Divers were drowned in sacks, and some appointed to die upon the wheel.... The 17th there were twenty-two of these rebels drowned in sacks, and the 18th at night twenty-five more. Among all these which be taken there be eighteen of the bravest captains of France.” Twelve hundred persons are computed to have perished in this massacre. The Baron of Castelnau-Chalosse, and Bricquemaut, Count of Villemangis, a Genevese refugee, had with others surrendered to the Duke of Nemours on condition that their lives should be spared; but the Guises were not the men to be bound by such a condition, when even Olivier the chancellor, not altogether a bad man, declared that “a prince was not required to keep his word to a rebel subject.” The Duke of Nemours had given a written pledge of safety, which, says Vieilleville, “vexed him greatly, who was concerned only about his signature; for if it had been his mere word, he would have been able to give the lie at any time to any one who might reproach him with it, and that without any exception, for the prince was brave and generous.” Pretty morality for a gentleman! When Castelnau was under examination he hesitated in some of his answers, upon which the Duke of Guise bade him “Speak out; one would think you are afraid.” “Afraid!” retorted the baron, “and where is the man so confident as not to be afraid, on seeing himself encompassed by mortal enemies as I am, when he has neither teeth nor nails with which to defend himself? In my place you would be afraid too.” On being condemned for high treason he remonstrated against the charge, not against the sentence, on the ground that he had undertaken nothing against the king; that he had merely leagued with a large portion of the nobility against the Guises, and that “these must be made kings before he could be guilty of lèze-majesté.”

Castelnau, like Coligny, had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and had employed the long hours of his enforced inactivity in reading the Bible. If it did not make him a Protestant, it shook his faith in the Church of Rome. In the course of his examination at Amboise, Chancellor Olivier taunted him with his “Puritanism.” Castelnau retorted: “When I saw you on my return from Flanders, I told you how I had spent my time, and you approved of it. We were then friends; why are we not so now? Is it possible that you spoke with sincerity when you were not in favor at court, and that now, in order to please a man you despise, you are a traitor to God and your conscience?” The Cardinal of Lorraine answered for the chancellor, upon which Castelnau appealed to Guise, who replied that he knew nothing about theology. “Would to Heaven you did,” said the baron; “for I esteem you well enough to think that if you were as enlightened as your brother the cardinal, you would follow better things.” A noble testimony to the character of the duke, who somewhat churlishly rejoined that he understood nothing but cutting off heads. Coligny and D’Andelot, as well as Francis II. and Mary, entreated the duke and the cardinal to spare Castelnau’s life; but the latter answered with a blasphemous oath: “He shall die, and no man in France shall save him.” The baron died appealing to God, who would ere long visit them with signal vengeance for the innocent blood they were shedding. When Villemangis ascended the scaffold, he dipped his hands in the blood of his comrades who had been executed before him, and raising them toward heaven exclaimed: “Oh Lord! behold the blood of thy children so unjustly shed; thou wilt avenge it.”

The Cardinal of Lorraine was the chief instigator of these murders: in his excessive cowardice he could not think himself safe unless all his enemies were killed. They threatened to _Stuart_ him--that is, to shoot him with a poisoned bullet, as James Stuart had shot President Minard; and one morning he found the following quatrain in his oratory:

Garde-toi, Cardinal, Que tu ne sois traité A la Minarde D’une stuarde.[123]

Imagining every one must be as fond of blood as himself, he used to conduct the young king and queen to the ramparts, or to the windows, to witness the executions,[124] pointing out the most illustrious of the victims and mocking at their agony. As they died almost all of them with firmness and serenity, he bade Francis II. “look at those insolent men, whom even death can not subdue. What would they not do with you, if they were your masters?” One afternoon, for these executions usually took place after dinner, for the amusement of the court, the Duchess of Guise was present, but she could not endure the ghastly spectacle. She nearly fainted away, and entering all pale and trembling into the queen-mother’s closet, she exclaimed: “Oh, madame, what horrors! I fear that a curse will come upon our house, and the innocent blood rest upon our heads!”

The Duke of Longueville, who had been invited to Amboise, stayed away under pretext of illness, but sent one of his gentlemen to make his excuses. Guise was at table when the messenger arrived, and took advantage of the opportunity to strike terror into the duke and all who opposed the Lorraine faction. “Tell your master I am very well,” he said, “and report to him the viands in which I indulge.” At the word a tall, fine-looking man was brought in, a rope was immediately put round his neck, and he was hanged to a bar of the window before the eyes of the astonished gentleman.[125]

Whatever may have been the temporary success procured by this ferocious victory, it disappointed the expectations of the Guises.[126] The moral world is so constituted that crime sooner or later works out its own punishment. “The butchers,” as the two Lorraine brothers were called, had converted their victims into martyrs, and all over France a feeling of resistance began to spring up that could not fail ere long to have a violent termination. Most of those who suffered at Amboise were of the Reformed religion; but there were others of the old faith who joined the conspiracy out of dislike to the duke and the cardinal, and who now began to think that no hope remained except in their swords. In the market-place of Amboise, where most of the victims had been put to death, Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné was sworn, like young Hannibal, to avenge the cause of his party. The elder D’Aubigné was taking the boy to Paris, and passing through Amboise one fair-time, he saw the ghastly heads of the conspirators still grinning horribly on the walls and gates. Moved with indignation, he spurred his horse into the midst of the assembled crowd, exclaiming: “The murderers! they have beheaded France.” Being recognized as a Calvinist, he had to ride for his life, and when he was out of danger he touched his son’s right hand: “My boy,” he said, “do not spare your head to avenge the heads of those honorable gentlemen. If you do, your father’s curse be upon you.” Young Theodore never forgot this lesson, and his life was one long heroic, if not always wise, devotion to the Reformed cause.

During the first terror inspired by the news of the conspiracy, an attempt had been made to secure the neutrality of the Reformed by issuing a proclamation to the effect, that “all persons (saving such as be preachers) detained in prison on account of their religion, should be immediately released”--on condition, however, that they lived as good Catholics like the rest of the people. This act of grace was issued (15th March) by the advice of Coligny, who having been hastily summoned to Amboise (partly to try how far he was cognizant of the plot), told the queen-mother plainly in a private audience that “the Huguenots had so increased in number and were so exasperated that they could not be induced to return to their duty, unless the persecutions and violent measures of the administration were suspended.” Chancellor Olivier was of the same opinion. “It is better to use mild measures than strong ones,” he said. At the same time instructions were sent to the Parliaments to make secret protests while registering the edict, so as to render it nugatory. Six days after it was issued, the Duke of Guise was named lieutenant-general (17th March, 1560). The pope sent a special envoy to France complaining of the amnesty, and to point out that “the true remedy for the disorders of the kingdom was to proceed judicially against the heretics, and if their number was too great, the king should employ the sword to bring his subjects back to their duty.” He offered to assist in so good a work to the extent of his ability, and to procure the support of the King of Spain and the princes of Italy.

It was not Catherine’s policy to crush the Huguenots entirely, and she appears to have taken some pains to conciliate them. In this tumult of Amboise (which could hardly have been displeasing to her, considering her antagonism to the Guises) she saw her opportunity, and sent for Regnier de la Planche, that she might learn his opinion as to the state of affairs. Regnier, who was a man of great political experience and moderation, told her frankly that the religious persecutions had armed many of the Huguenots, while the favor shown to the Guises had increased the number of the discontented. He also argued that a national council was the only means for settling the religious differences. The advice was not very well received, and La Planche nearly suffered for his plain-speaking. Coligny, who had left Amboise to try and pacify Normandy, then almost in open rebellion, wrote to the same effect to the queen-mother, advising also the assembling of the States-General.

No sooner was the panic over and the Guises once more felt secure, than the religious persecutions were renewed with all their former severity. The old edicts against the Christaudins or Sacramentarians were revived, and commissions were appointed to receive secret evidence. To make the persecution more effectual, the Cardinal of Lorraine tried once more to introduce all the forms of the Inquisition without the name, and obtained a resolution of the royal council entrusting the entire cognizance of heresy to the prelates of the Church, and ordering that their sentence should be final, the heretics being handed over to the secular arm for punishment. L’Hopital, the new chancellor, resisted the encroachment on the broad grounds that the right of trial and punishment of _all offenses_--whether against person, property, or religion (except in the case of ecclesiastics)--lay with the king; that the right of appeal to the royal tribunals could not be taken away; and that the judgment on those appeals should be delivered by lay judges. He succeeded thus far in establishing the axiom, that “no power in the state possessed sovereign authority of life or death over the subjects of such state, except the king.” But he was compelled to yield in other points, and being of opinion that it is politic to permit a small mischief to escape a greater, he gave an unwilling consent to the edict of Romorantin (May, 1560), which declared that the cognizance of heresy should remain with the bishops, who were to proceed in the usual manner. This was a great sacrifice to intolerance, but it really gave the bishops no new power. Other clauses declared all persons attending conventicles guilty of high treason, and assigned a reward of 500 crowns to informers; to which the singular provision was appended, that all calumnious informers should be subjected to the _peine du talion_, in other words, suffer the punishment to which their victims were liable. To a certain extent this edict recognized the complaints of the Reformers by ordering the bishops to reside in their dioceses, and the parish priests to tend their flocks more carefully, teach them properly, and live among them. The new chancellor might well be proud of his work, the first hesitating step in the path of toleration. The Parliament of Paris refused to register the decree on the ground that it encroached on the civil power, and L’Hopital had to struggle for ten days before he could overcome their resistance. The fear of a repetition of the “tumult of Amboise” had frightened the Cardinal of Lorraine into accepting the edict; but his brother Francis bluntly declared he would never draw the sword in its defense. This was quite in his style, for he hated the Reformed not only because they were rebels against the Church, but because they were attached to the Bourbon princes. Navarre, indeed, was not very formidable, it being always possible to hold him in check by playing upon his selfishness; but his brother, the Prince of Condé, was a high-spirited, clever, resolute man, one to be kept down by all means.

In reading the history of this period it must be constantly borne in mind, that the religious malcontents were often political malcontents also,[127] their number being increased by all who hated the monopoly of power so tenaciously held by the Guises. The small gentry, who in a spirit of opposition had accepted the Reformed doctrines, brought a new and fatal element into the movement. Despising Calvin’s advice to bear injuries, and that opposition to lawful authority is a crime, they were secretly preparing the means of resistance, which their ecclesiastical organization greatly facilitated. The impetuous gentlemen and soldiers returned insult for insult, and blow for blow. Thus day by day the political character of the Huguenots[128] (as the Reformers were called after the affair of Amboise) became more prominent. It was a deplorable but almost inevitable result of the combination against the house of Lorraine, and it proved the temporary destruction of French Protestantism. Ere long France was divided into two hostile camps; and although this will not excuse the harshness with which the Huguenots were treated, it will in some measure account for it. The Romish party were contending not only for religion but for supremacy, for place, for authority. Who should govern the king and the state was a question now quite as important as which faith was right, that of Geneva or of Rome? The age was one of great superstition and ignorance, and the foulest rumors were circulated against the Protestants, and greedily swallowed. Claude Haton, who has left us a striking and truthful picture of his time, supplies us with a curious illustration of the popular faith touching the Huguenots. He says that mad dogs had decreased so much during the last two years that people believed the devils had left the dogs and entered into the Reformers.[129] The Catholics were by no means scrupulous as to the weapons they employed to exasperate the fierce passions of the lower classes. There were few who could read the pamphlets, ballads, or broadsides which the printers poured forth with astonishing profusion; but all could understand the rude wood-cuts in which the Huguenots were represented as nailing iron shoes on the bare feet of a pious hermit, or making a target of a priest nailed to a cross. The pulpit was turned into an arena for abuse, whence the monks, who were far more inveterate against the Reformers than the secular clergy, inveighed with all the power of their lungs, and the copiousness of their abusive vocabulary, against the new doctrines and its professors. The Huguenots and their allies were not slow to retaliate, and in fierce invective were by no means inferior to their persecutors. The most notorious of their satires, or “libels,” was that known as _The Tiger_,[130] written against the Cardinal of Lorraine, and for selling which in the ordinary course of business, a poor Parisian book-seller[131] was arrested in June, 1560, tortured to make him give up the name of the author, which probably he did not know, and then hanged. An unfortunate spectator, a merchant of Rouen, who had manifested some compassion for the fate of poor Martin Lhomme, was arrested and executed four days after as an accomplice.[132]

It was a time of almost universal lawlessness. “Every day,” writes Throckmorton to Cecil, “there are advertisements of new stirs.”[133] There was no public protection, no law enforced; every man had to protect himself as best he could. In Paris the insecurity of life and property was notorious. The Catholics armed themselves against the Huguenots, and these in their turn procured arms in self-defense. Even priests and monks shouldered the spear and arquebuse, and became captains of companies. And when the war did really break out, such victors would not be very merciful, especially when the vanquished had imported a new element into the strife by defiling the churches, destroying the images, and ridiculing the ceremonies. There were many Huguenots who disgraced the name they assumed; but had they all been pious, the triumphant Romanist would not have spared them. The cause of pure religion suffered much from the violence of these hot-headed partisans. At Rheims the “Lutherans” ate meat publicly in Lent, broke the lanterns before the image of the Virgin over the great door of the cathedral, and prowled about at night defacing the crosses and pictures. One Gillet, a lawyer, drove a priest from a chapel, seized the alms in the poor-box, and gave the sacerdotal robes to his wife, who made caps and other articles of feminine attire out of them. At Rouen, when a Catholic priest spoke of purgatory in his sermon, the Huguenots called him “a fool,” and the children who had been trained for the purpose, imitated the amorous noises of cats. The Reformed doctrine was introduced into Brittany in 1558 by Andelot. At Croisic the “new apostles” were so bold as to preach in the principal church, Notre Dame de Pitié, of which the people and clergy complained as soon as Andelot’s back was turned. The bishop of the diocese marched in solemn procession through the streets, after which the clergy attacked with a large culverine a house in which the preachers had taken refuge. The inmates, nineteen in number, escaped during the night, and the prelate was very properly condemned by the government, “such violent practices being unusual in the kingdom,” which certainly was not a correct statement.

It was supposed that a general council by restoring unity to the Church would cure many of the evils under which France suffered. The queen-mother supported this opinion, and we may imagine we hear her speaking in a letter written by Francis II. to the Bishop of Limoges: “The Church of God,” he says, “will never enjoy peace or rest, never shall we see the end of the troubles and calamities which this religious division is bringing over all the Christian world, unless a general council be convened.... It is notorious that the Council of Trent has not been received or approved by Germany or by the Protestants, who have attacked its authority, as having been held without them.... We Christian princes ought to try by all means to invite the Protestants and Germans to the council, ... it being my opinion that it had better not open at all, if the Germans and Protestants are not invited, for it would be labor in vain.” Such was the tone in which the king wrote to the pope, and such were the sentiments he desired Limoges to lay before the King of Spain. He even went so far as to threaten to hold a national council, if the pope were obstinate. “It is undeniable,” he said, “that there are so many abuses in the manners of churchmen, that there are but few of them who do their duty. Now this neglect breeds that contempt for divine things, by which men are led to forsake God and fall into those errors wherein we now see them.” In a similar strain he wrote to the Bishop of Rennes, his embassador at the imperial court.[134]

In a somewhat similar tone wrote the Cardinal of Lorraine to the same bishop, urging the necessity of a council, and blaming the coldness of the pope. He complains of the “pitiful condition into which religion had fallen,” and declares a council to be “the only remedy for all our ills.” In nearly the same words writes Florimond de Robertet, secretary of state, adding that the king was resolved at all events “to convoke an assembly of notables.”

These opinions compared with the instructions given to the French prelates at the Council of Trent may be taken as evidence that the court was sincere in its desire to purify the national church. Those ecclesiastics were to demand that the ceremonial should be corrected and all other things whereby the ignorant might be abused under a show of piety; that the cup should be restored to the laity; that the sacraments should be administered in the vulgar tongue; that during mass the Word of God should be read and interpreted, and the young people should be catechised, to the end that all might be instructed in what they should believe, and how they should live so as to please God; that prayers should be offered up in French, and that certain times should be appointed, as well at high mass as at vespers, wherein it might be lawful to sing psalms in the church. The prelates were also instructed to complain of the unchaste lives of the clergy.[135]

There can be little doubt, therefore, that in the summer of 1560 France was on the brink of a great religious change, perhaps of a national reformation. Catherine de Medicis inclined toward it, not that she cared much about creeds, but because it seemed an admirable political weapon ready to her hand. The Cardinal of Lorraine did not oppose it, probably hoping to increase his wealth by the plunder of the Church, after the English example. All moderate-minded people wished for a reformation that did not involve separation from Rome. Even the violent Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes listened for once to the voice of common sense: “Mass ought not to be said in French, no change or reform should be introduced into the ceremonies without the approval of a general council. Nevertheless, I must confess (he added) that the people would be much more stirred up to devotion, if they heard in their own tongue the chants of the priests and the psalms that are sung in church.”

While these conciliatory measures were under discussion in the royal council-chamber, the difference between the two creeds was growing wider. The Reformers had increased so greatly in many of the large towns, particularly in the south and west (as we shall presently see), that in defiance of the edicts they gave up their secret meetings in woods and barns, and worshiped in public. The king wrote to Tavannes respecting the troubles in Dauphiny, ordering him to collect troops and “cut the religious rebels in pieces.... There is nothing I desire more than to exterminate them utterly, and so tear them up by the roots that no fresh ones may arise.... Chastise them without mercy.”[136] Six months later (Oct., 1560) the king sent Paul de la Barthe, marshal of Termes, to Poitiers with 200 men-at-arms to check heresy, and particularly to “catch the ministers and punish them soundly.” They were to be hanged without trial. He was to permit no assemblies, and if any were held, he was to fall upon them with the sword. “I beg of you, cousin,” he wrote, “to sweep the country clear of such rabble who disturb the world.”[137] Such orders were the fruit of the Guise government; it is but just, however, to say, that it is doubtful whether this letter was sent to the marshal, probably because on reflection it appeared too cruel. The Count of Villars, describing the effect produced by this merciless persecution, writes: “Part of the inhabitants of Nismes, to the number of 3000 or 4000, have retired into the mountains of the Gevaudan, whence they threaten to descend into the plain, in which case those who appear the most submissive will infallibly join them. The heresy extends every day.” As for the prisoners, he continues, their number is so great that it is impossible to put them all to death. On the 12th October, 1560, he informs the constable that he has burned two mule-loads of books from Geneva, valued at 1000 crowns, and set free a number of women on their promise “to live in obedience to God, the Roman Church, and the King.”[138] In the same month the magistrates of Anjou complain to the cardinal, that “the seditious remnants of Amboise, uniting with the depraved nobility to the number of 1000 or 1200, celebrate the communion and disturb the country.”[139]

As the barbarous orders of the court could not be kept secret, they only served to exasperate the Huguenots. Becoming more aggressive, they appropriated many of the churches to their own use, turning out the priests, whom they often cruelly maltreated. The sacred edifices they purified, as they called it, by destroying the pictures, breaking down the roods, throwing away the relics, and giving the consecrated wafer to swine. We can hardly picture to ourselves the horror excited in Catholic minds by such outrages. It may be compared with the thrill of agony that ran through England, when the atrocities of the Sepoy mutiny became known. The Duke of Guise retaliated with unrelenting ferocity. He was governor of Dauphiny, and, to intimidate that province, he ordered one Maugiron, a creature of his and afterward governor of Lyons, to make an example of the people of Valence and Romans. These places were taken by a foul stratagem, two of the Huguenot ministers were beheaded, and the principal citizens were hanged, and their houses given up to pillage. One ferocity begot another. Two Reformed gentlemen, Montbrun and Mouvans, raised the country, destroying or defiling churches, opening convents and turning out the inmates, especially the nuns, and ill-using the priests, and defiantly celebrating public worship under arms. The subsequent history of Anthony Derichiend, seigneur of Mouvans, furnishes a striking illustration of the lawlessness and insecurity of the times. Being tired of war, he and his brother Paul returned to their homes at Castellane in Provence, intending to pass the remainder of their days in God’s service. They did not, however, find the quiet they had expected. They were much annoyed by their neighbors, and during Lent a grey friar went into the pulpit and so inflamed the people against them that they were besieged in their own house by a mob of several hundred men. They escaped this peril, and Anthony appealed to Henry for protection, which was granted (1559). While he was on his way to Grenoble, to lay his case before the Parliament, as the king had bidden him, he halted at Draguignan. The children, instigated by certain priests, began to hoot at him as “a Lutheran,” and in a short time a fierce mob crowded round the house in which he had taken shelter. Hoping to save his life, he surrendered into the hands of the officers of justice, who were too weak, and probably not over-anxious, to protect him. The mob tore him out of their hands, beat him to death, and inflicted brutalities on his corpse which it is impossible to describe. Among other things they plucked out his heart and other portions, and carried them on sticks triumphantly round the town. One of the wretches offered a morsel of the liver to a dog which refused to touch it. With a kick and an oath the man howled out: “Are you too a Lutheran like Mouvans?”[140] An inquiry was ordered into the outrage, but the passions of all the province were too much excited to permit justice to be done. “You have killed the old one,” said one of the royal commissioners, “why don’t you kill the young one? I would not give a straw for your courage. Down with all these rascally Lutherans, kill them all.” Paul now took up arms, and after inflicting much damage upon his adversaries, was finally compelled to take refuge at Geneva.

Of the morals of these “rascally Lutherans” in this part of France, we have the unimpeachable testimony of Procureur Marquet of Valence, who says that, for the eight years he held the office of town-clerk, not a day passed but his registers were full of complaints of outrages of every kind committed during the night. The streets were unsafe after dark, and the citizens were not secure from robbery and violence even in their own houses. Then he adds: “But after the preaching of the Gospel, all that was altered, as if a change of life had accompanied a change of doctrine.” No one was found bold enough to contradict such testimony.

One of the first persons to raise his voice against the persecution of the Huguenots was L’Hopital, the chancellor. In his inaugural address to the Parliament of Paris (5th July, 1560) he boldly declared the Church to be the cause of the religious disorders through its evil example; the soldiers were unpaid and justified their violence; the mass of the people both in town and country were ignorant and wicked, because the priests preached to them about tithes and offerings, and said nothing about godly living; and that the only remedy was a general council. He went on to argue that the diseases of the mind are not to be healed like those of the body, adding, that “though a man may recant, he does not change his heart.”[141]

In this address L’Hopital spoke the sentiments of a small but increasing party which, under the name of the “politicians,” tried to hold a balance between the Huguenots and the Romanists. They might indeed be called “constitutionalists,” for there is no doubt their secret desire was to put an end to the ministerial usurpation and despotism of the Guises. They maintained that the dissidents had a right to be heard; but their arguments would have been ineffectual had the exchequer been in a flourishing condition. The government was in extreme want of money, the annual expenditure exceeding the income by nearly three millions of livres. Loans could only be raised at exorbitant rates of interest, and to impose new taxes would only increase the disorders of the country and perhaps drive the peasants into another Jacquerie. Thus all parties came at last to agree in the necessity of calling the States-General together; preliminary to which letters patent were issued, convening an assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau, these Notables being persons of rank and influence among the nobles and clergy, knights of the order of St. Michael, and lawyers.

The king was escorted to the place of meeting by a strong guard, in addition to the troops under the command of the Guises. The general distrust and insecurity were shown by the number of armed men who accompanied the great chieftains of each party. The constable was attended by his two sons, Marshals Montmorency and Damville, and followed by eight hundred gentlemen on horseback. Coligny, Andelot, the Vidame of Chartres, and Prince Porcien entered with nine hundred of the inferior nobility. The meeting was opened on the 21st August, in the apartments of Catherine de Medicis. Grouped around the young king were his brothers and their mother; the Cardinals of Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, and Chatillon; the Dukes of Guise and Aumale, the Constable and the Admiral; Marshals St. André and Brissac, the knights of the order, and other privy councilors. The two princes of the blood (Navarre and Condé) were absent, having (it is said) come to an arrangement with Coligny never to be present at the same place with him lest they should all be caught in the trap at once. Francis II. opened the proceedings with a few complimentary phrases, and then deputed his chancellor to lay before the members the condition of the country. L’Hopital, who had succeeded Olivier through the influence of the Duchess of Montpensier, a special favorite of Catherine’s, was not a man of illustrious birth; but by industry, integrity, and learning, he had risen step by step to the highest office in the state. On this occasion, with rather less prolixity than was customary in those days, he described the state as being sick, the Church corrupted, justice weakened, the nobles disorderly, and the zeal and loyalty which the people were wont to show the king wonderfully cooled; and that the remedy for all these evils was hard to find. He did not so much as venture to hint at one of the remedies; but at the second sitting, two days later (22d August), Coligny boldly opened up the matter by presenting a petition from the Huguenots, in which they justified their faith by Scripture, asserted their loyalty and love for the king, professed that they had never understood their duty so well toward their sovereign as since they had been converted to the new doctrine, prayed that a stop might be put to the cruel persecutions under which they were suffering, and asked permission to read the Bible and hold their meetings in open day, offering in return “to pay larger tribute than the rest of His Majesty’s subjects.” Strange to say, the prayer of the petition was supported by two high ecclesiastical dignitaries--John de Montluc, Bishop of Valence, and Charles de Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne. Montluc was an eloquent speaker, much esteemed for his experience in public affairs and knowledge of sacred literature. He denounced the severities and tyranny of the judges toward the Lutherans, and charged the Guises with violating the laws of the kingdom and sowing dissensions between the king and his subjects. He described the superior clergy as “idlers not having the fear of God before their eyes, or that they would have to give an account of their flocks,” adding that their only care was for the revenue of their sees, and that thirty or forty of them were non-resident, leading scandalous lives in Paris; the inferior clergy he characterized as ignorant and avaricious. He went on to say: “Let your majesty see that the word of God be no more profaned, but let the Scriptures be everywhere read and explained with purity and sincerity. Let the Gospel be preached daily in your house, so that the mouths of those may be shut who say that God’s name is never heard there.” Then turning to the two queens, Mary Stuart and Catherine de Medicis, he continued: “Pardon me, ladies, if I dare entreat you to order your damsels to sing not foolish songs, but the Psalms of David and spiritual hymns; and remember that the eye of God is over all men and in all places, and is fixed there only where his name is praised and exalted.” The remedy he proposed, and which had been mentioned in the petition presented by Coligny, was a general council.

In one part of his speech, when giving a sketch of the progress of Reform in France, he passed a noble compliment on its ministers: “The doctrine,” he said, “which finds favor with your subjects has not been sown in one or two days, but has taken thirty years: it was brought in by 300 or 400 ministers, men of diligence and learning, of great modesty, gravity, and apparent holiness, professing to detest all vice, especially avarice; fearing not to lose their lives so that they might enforce their teaching, having Jesus Christ always on their lips ... a name so sweet that it opens the closest ears and sinks easily into the hearts of the most hardened. These preachers, finding the people without pastor or guide, with no one to instruct or teach them, were received readily, and listened to willingly. So that we need not be surprised if great numbers have embraced this new doctrine, which has been proclaimed by so many preachers and books.” On the other hand, he said that bishoprics were frequently bestowed upon children, and benefices conferred upon cooks, barbers and lacqueys.

Marillac, who had learned experience as embassador at the court of Charles V., used similar but stronger language: he spoke of the “corrupted discipline of the Church, of multiplied abuses, frequent scandals, and licentious ministers,” and agreed that the only remedy lay in a national council. “To prepare the way for that council,” he said, “three or four things are necessary. Firstly, all the bishops, without exception, must be forced to reside in their dioceses. Secondly, we must show by our actions that we are determined to reform ourselves, and to that end we must put down simony. For spiritual things are given by God freely without money: _gratis accepistis, gratis date_. Thirdly, we must fast and confess our sins, which is the first step toward a cure. Fourthly, both factions must lay down their arms.” The next day Coligny defended the petition he had presented. “The king,” he said, “was beloved and not hated; and the people did not like to be kept from him. All the discontent was against those who managed affairs, and would easily be quieted, if they would rule according to the laws of the kingdom.” He advised the assembling of the States-General and the dismissal of the guard, which was not required for the protection of the sovereign. He also suggested the relaxation of the persecutions until the assembling of a council. “But your petition,” said Francis II., “has no signatures.” “That is true, Sire,” replied the admiral; “but if you will allow us to meet for the purpose, I will in one day obtain in Normandy alone 50,000 signatures.” “And I,” said the Duke of Guise,[142] interrupting him, “will find 100,000 good Catholics to break their heads.” He then contended that a royal guard had become necessary since the affair of Amboise. “My brother and I,” he said, “have never offended or given cause of discontent to any as regards their private affairs.” The Cardinal of Lorraine argued that, to permit the Reformed to have their temples and the right of public worship was to approve of their “idolatry,” which the king could not do without the risk of eternal damnation.[143] He denied the loyalty of the petitioners, “who are obedient only on condition that the king should be of their opinion and their sect, or at least approves of it.” He gloried in the animosity of the Huguenots, adding (as if aside) “there are twenty-two of their libels against me now on my table, and I intend to preserve them very carefully.” In conclusion he called for the severest measures against such “of the religion” as should take up arms; but as for those who went unarmed to the sermon, sang psalms, and kept away from mass, he did not advise their punishment, seeing that all severity hitherto had been useless. He even expressed regret that they should have been so cruelly treated, and offered his life if that could bring the stray sheep back to the fold. He ended with an exhortation to the clergy to reform themselves, and desired that the bishops and others should inquire into the abuses of the Church and report thereon to the king. Of good words and good resolutions the cardinal always had an ample store upon which he could draw at will. They were mere counters with which to play the game of politics.

The discussion, which also embraced the subject of the tumult of Amboise, the severity of the retaliation, and the alarming increase of the royal body-guard (which was denounced in nearly the same terms as our ancestors complained of a standing army), resulted in a decision to convene, first, the States-General, and, afterward, a national council, to decide upon the religious faith of the French people. The King of Spain remonstrated through his embassador against the meeting of the States, on the ground that it would “puff up the Huguenots;” and offered his aid to chastise them. But money was wanted, and the court was prepared to make any temporary sacrifice in order to procure supplies. The Venetian embassador saw the importance of this official recognition of the Reformed party. “Either their desires will be satisfied,” he says, “or else, if any attempt is made to keep them obedient to the pope, the court must resort to force, shed pitilessly the blood of the nobility, divide the kingdom into two parties, and come to a civil war, which will destroy both country and religion.... Religious changes always lead the way to political changes;”[144] an assertion which is only partially true. Political and religious changes, when national and not merely personal, are produced by the operation of similar causes; and which change shall come first depends upon circumstances that appear to vary in every case. In 1560 the Venetian embassador certainly had not sufficient data from which to draw so sweeping a conclusion. The court saw no danger in the proposed assemblies, and writs were issued for the States-General to meet in December, 1560, at Meaux in Brie, and for a national council of bishops and other church dignitaries to assemble at Pontoise on the following month of January. The letters of convocation ran that “they were to confer together and resolve what should be laid before a general council; and until that should assemble, the clergy were to suspend all proceedings against heretics, and correct the abuses that had gradually crept into the house of God.”[145]

After the Amboise failure, Anthony of Navarre kept himself aloof at Nerac in Gascony, where he was joined by his brother Condé, who had openly professed the new religion. The latter succeeded in inspiring the king with some of his own spirit, but could not induce him to take any step that would commit him with the Lorraine party. Meanwhile the little town on the Baise became the general rendezvous of all the discontented, who, undismayed by the past, were quite as ready to act as to speak. But there was no one to lead them, for the eldest of the Bourbon line still hesitated. It was supposed that a remonstrance from the whole Huguenot body might move him, and with that intent the chiefs of the Protestant party laid before him “a supplication,” in which they (to the number of more than a million) offered him the disposal of their lives and fortunes, provided he would make common cause with them by putting himself at their head; threatening, in case of refusal, to choose another leader, native or foreign. The supplication was nominally addressed to both princes, but was really intended for Navarre alone, who however was not bold enough to act upon it.

At the same time the Guises, repenting that they had permitted Condé, “the dumb chief,” to leave Amboise, began to strengthen their hands. Duke Francis, now lieutenant-general of the kingdom, having full control over the military resources of the country, increased the royal body-guard by the addition of several regiments, the command of which he gave to the infamous Du Plessis-Richelieu, one time a monk but now a soldier. He also received troops from Scotland, kept up the veteran regiments of Brissac, which had just returned from Italy, and negotiated for the assistance of Swiss and German mercenaries. This step, as we shall see, necessarily drove the Huguenots to seek foreign help. Meanwhile the King of Navarre and his brother appear to have entered into a new plot against the Guises, of which a general Huguenot insurrection formed a part. It was to begin with the seizure of Lyons, an important town close to the Swiss frontier and on the northern border of the most Protestant portion of France. Here Condé was to rally all the disaffected nobility and gentry, while Navarre headed a similar rising in the west. This plot, even more obscure than that of Amboise, came to nothing, beyond implicating the two Bourbon princes, whose share in it is, nevertheless, somewhat doubtful. This was another triumph for the house of Lorraine, who determined to crush their rivals at once and forever. Francis II. proceeded to Orleans escorted by a numerous guard. The Prince of Roche-sur-Yon was made governor for the occasion; the garrisons from the neighboring towns were called in, which, added to the king’s escort of 4000 foot, composed a force of nearly 10,000 men. Hither the two brothers were summoned to explain their conduct, and the Count of Crussol, the bearer of the letters, was instructed to hint that resistance was hopeless, as the king could bring against them 48,000 French troops besides Swiss and German lansquenets. Moreover the King of Spain had promised to assist with two large armies, one entering France by Picardy, the other by the Pyrenees. Anthony at first held back, despite these hints, and had he been as enterprising as his brother, he might soon have been at the head of a force as strong as any that the Guises could muster against him, and for a time it was believed at court that he could do so. But he was always mean-spirited, always crouching, and cringing, and thinking of himself. Some time before this, in order to contradict a report coming from Spain that he favored the Amboise conspirators,[146] he fell upon some Protestant insurgents at Agen and cut them to pieces. Both he and his brother had been warned of the impending danger. The Princess of Condé wrote to her husband: “Every step you take toward the court brings you nearer to destruction. If your death is inevitable, it is surely more glorious to die at the head of an army than to perish ignominiously on the scaffold.” Catherine also intimated to him circuitously that “it was death for him to come to court.”[147]

After he had made up his mind to go to Orleans, Anthony moved so slowly and irresolutely that the journey occupied him a month. On the road he dismissed the little band of Huguenot gentlemen who had gathered round him with the words: “I must obey, but I will obtain your pardon from the king.” “Go,” said an old captain, “go and ask pardon for yourself: our safety is in our swords.”[148] On the 31st October, 1560, he reached Orleans. It was nearly dark when he entered the city, accompanied by his brother Louis, the Cardinal of Bourbon, and a few servants. No one dared go out to meet him, and extraordinary precautions had been taken to guard against a hostile attack. Immediately on the arrival of Francis II. the city had (to use a modern term) been put under martial law. Artillery brought from Compiègne was mounted on the walls, the sentries were doubled, and the citizens ordered, under the severest penalties, to deliver up their arms, even including such knives as were of unusual length. Numerous arrests had been made of suspected persons, and among them was the high-bailiff of the city. And now from the gates to the castle where the king lodged armed men lined the streets in double file--an imposing but idle show. When Anthony reached the royal quarters, he desired, according to his privilege as a prince of the blood, to ride into the court-yard; but the great gates were shut against him, and he had to dismount and enter by a wicket. The Venetian embassador, Giovanni Michieli, thus describes his appearance about this time:--“He is now between forty-four and forty-five years of age. His beard is getting grey, his demeanor is much more imposing than that of his brother, whose stature is low, and figure awkward. He is tall, robust, and well-made, and his courage in battle is highly extolled, though he is rather a good soldier than a skillful general.” Another embassador mentions with astonishment the rich ear-rings and other ornaments Anthony delighted to wear.

Francis received him frowningly, not condescending to raise his hat, as he was wont to do to the meanest gentleman. After kneeling, Anthony said he had come thither in obedience to the royal command, to vindicate his character against calumnious charges; to which the king replied that it was well, at the same time forbidding him to quit Orleans without permission. As Condé did not utter a word, the king angrily reproached him with conspiracy and rebellion. The prince replied calmly that these were slanders invented by his enemies, and that he would take care to justify himself; to which Francis made answer that, to give him an opportunity of so doing, he would be kept in prison until trial. The king then ordered the captains of his guard, Chavigny and Brezay, to arrest the prince. As they were leading him away, he said to the Cardinal of Bourbon, who had persuaded him to trust the king: “By your exhortations you have betrayed your brother to death.”[149] He was guarded very strictly; the windows of the house in which he was confined were closely barred, sentinels were posted round it, and no one was allowed to have access to him. “The King of Navarre,” says Throckmorton, “goeth at liberty, but as it were a prisoner, and is every other day on hunting.”[150] He was under strict surveillance; all his words and acts were closely watched.

The Chatillons had been duly summoned to attend at Orleans. Andelot, suspecting treachery, retired to Brittany; while his brother the admiral, who was equally suspicious of the Guises, determined to be present in his place. He bade farewell to his wife, shortly to become a mother, as if he was never to see her face again, desiring her to have the babe christened by the “true ministers of the word of God.” Catherine received him cordially, and indeed put him on his guard, it being her interest thus to play off one party against the other.

And now once more the Guises were triumphant, and their hands were strengthened by the acts of those who had plotted their ruin. Now that the prey was in their grasp, they would show no mercy. But first they must be revenged on the Huguenots, “those silly folks who bring such scandal on the honor of God,” as the cardinal wrote to De Burie. “We must make a striking example of them, so that, by the punishment of a few bad men, the good may be preserved.” The pastors were especially singled out, that their fate might be a warning for the future. Condé was to be tried before a packed commission, of whose verdict and sentence there could be no doubt. His brother’s fate was equally certain,[151] and as soon as the two princes of the blood were dispatched, the admiral with Montmorency and all the opponents of the Lorraine family were to be got rid of. Such a scheme of wholesale murder is hardly credible, though supported by the strong testimony of the Spanish embassador, who feared the Guises were going a “little too fast.”[152] Anthony of Navarre was to be the first victim. One day he was summoned to an audience with the king, at which it had been arranged that a quarrel should be got up between him and Francis II.; that the latter should draw his sword as in self-defense; and that the creatures of the Guises should then rush in and murder the prince. It is alleged that Anthony had been informed of the plot, but nevertheless would not shrink from the audience. As he was leaving his quarters, he said to Captain Renty, one of his faithful followers: “If I perish, strip off my shirt and carry it to my wife, and bid her take it to every Christian king in Europe, and call on him to avenge my death.” As soon as Anthony entered the presence-chamber, the door was closed behind him. Francis made some insulting observations, but hesitated--was it through fear or pity?--to give the signal for his uncle’s murder. “The coward!” muttered the Duke of Guise, who stood watching on the other side of the door. Anthony survived the perilous interview.[153]

The Chancellor L’Hopital and five judges were appointed as a commission to try Condé in prison, and although he refused to plead before them, it availed him nothing. This protest and such answers as he did make having been laid before the king in council, the prince was found guilty of high treason, and condemned to lose his head. But before the sentence could be carried out, great changes took place in France. About the middle of November the king, whose health had never been very robust, “felt himself somewhat evil-disposed of his body, with a pain in his head and one of his ears.”[154] He rapidly grew worse; all means of relief were tried, but tried in vain. He was suffering from internal abscess. While he lay between life and death, the Guises made a desperate effort to get rid of the only antagonist whom they really feared. They urged Catherine to make away with their common enemy before it was too late; but Catherine, knowing that, in the strife of parties, the enemy of Guise must be a friend to her, refused to do any thing without consulting the chancellor. L’Hopital found the queen “weeping among her women, who surrounded her in deep silence, their eyes fixed on the ground.” It did not give him much trouble to show the illegality as well as the impolicy of the proposed act, and Condé was saved. On the 5th of December Francis II. expired in great agony, and as it was part of the popular faith to believe that no great personage could die a natural death, Ambrose Paré, the famous surgeon, was accused of poisoning the youthful king by pouring “a leporous distillment” into his ear, by command of the queen-mother.[155] Coligny, as one of the chief officers of the crown, had the melancholy charge of watching the dying king, and did not leave the bedside until Francis had breathed his last. Then--turning to the courtiers who were present, and who had gathered round the Duke of Guise--he said, with the pious gravity that was natural to him: “Gentlemen, the king is dead; let that teach us how to live.” Returning to his quarters as soon as he could leave the king’s chamber, he sat in deep thought before the fire, his tooth-pick, as usual, in his mouth, and his feet on the embers. Fontaine, one of his suite, observing his abstraction, caught him by the arm: “Sir, you have been wool-gathering enough. You have burned your boots.” “Ah! Fontaine,” replied the admiral, “only a week ago you and I would have thought ourselves well off with the loss of a leg each, and now we have only lost a pair of boots. It is a good exchange.”

The Huguenots were accused of exulting at the king’s death; and we can almost excuse them, considering what they had suffered during his brief reign. Calvin looked upon it as the judgment of God. “Did you ever hear or read of any thing so opportune as the death of the little king,” he said. “Just when there was no remedy for our extreme evils, God suddenly appeared from heaven, and he who had pierced the eye of the father struck the ear of the son.”[156] Beza also regarded it in the same light. He says, the sword was already at our throats when “the Lord our God rose up and carried off that miserable boy by a death as foul as it was unforeseen. No royal honors were paid his corpse, and the enemy of the Lutherans was buried like a Lutheran.”[157]

The people were but little attached to Francis, and called him “the king without vices,” to which the Huguenots added, “and without virtues.” He was in fact just what the persons about him made him. He was educated by Jacques Amyot, the learned translator of Plutarch, in an age when translating had not become a mechanical art. He had always been a sickly child, and there is a letter extant of his father’s, from which we learn, not only that Henry II. loved his children, but also the weakness of the dauphin’s constitution.[158] Voltaire very fairly describes him as a

Faible enfant qui de Guise adorait les caprices, Et dont on ignorait et les vertus et les vices.

_Henriade._

NOTE.

One of the most violent of the satires aimed at the Cardinal of Lorraine was that called “The Tiger,” about which very little is known. The authorship is doubtful, the title disputed, and of two works recently brought to light, it is hard to say which is the original. De Thou speaks of a “libellus cui _Tigridi_ præfixus.” In a tract, “Religionis et Regis adversus Calvini, Bezæ et Ottomanni conjuratorum factionis defensio prima” (8vo. 1562, fol. 17), we read: “Hic te, Ottomanne, excutere incipio. Scis enim ex cujus officina _Tigris_ prodiit, liber certe tigridi parente dignissimus. Tute istius libelli authorem....” There is also extant a letter to Hotmann from Sturm, who was rector of the High School of Strasburg in June, 1562: “Ex hoc genere _Tygris_, immanis illa bellua quam _tu hic_ contra cardinalis existimationem divulgare curasti.” But if these two authorities are conclusive as to Hotmann’s authorship, they leave us in doubt as to what was the real title of the satire, and which is the original of two contemporary libels. To the researches of M. Charles Nodier we owe the discovery of a manuscript poem entitled: “Le Tigre, Satire sur les Gestes mémorables des Guysards” (4to, 1561), and beginning thus:

Méchant diable acharné, sépulcre abominable, Spectacle de malheur, vipère épouvantable, Monstre, tygre enragé, jusques á quand par toi Verrons-nous abuser le jeune âge du roy?

The title of the other satire is “Epistre envoiée au Tygre de la France,” and begins thus:--“Tigre enragé, vipère vénimeuse, sépulcre d’abomination, spectacle de malheur, jusques à quand sera-ce que tu abuseras de la jeunesse de nostre roy?” It charges the Cardinal with incest, but the “sister” was a sister-in-law, Anne of Este, wife of Duke Francis of Guise: “Qui ne voit rien de saint que tu ne souilles, rien de chaste que tu ne violes, rien de bon que tu ne gâtes. L’honneur de ta sœur ne se peut garantir d’avec toy. Tu laisses ta robe, tu prens l’épée pour l’aller voir. Le mari ne peut être si vigilant que tu ne deçoives sa femme,” etc. This was first printed at Strasburg in 1562, and it was for selling one or other of these that Martin Lhomme was put to death. The indictment mentions “épîtres divers et cartels diffamatoires,” but no verse--which is not however conclusive against the poem. The date appears adverse to the claim of the prose satire; but both versions are so much alike as to suggest community of origin. May there not have been a Latin original, and may not Henri Étienne, author of the “Discours merveilleux,” have had more to do with it than Francis Hotmann, professor of civil law at Strasburg? The proclamation issued against it by the Parliament of Paris bears date 13th July, 1560. [See Brunet: “Manuel du ibraire,” ii. 193.]