Part 16 (1/2)
To an American this seems strange, for it has been proved time and again that a strong minority can do a great deal to shape legislation.
But the Huguenots reasoned differently, and so seated but one Protestant in the whole a.s.sembly, a deputy to the second, or n.o.ble, estate. The privileged orders p.r.o.nounced immediately for the enforcement of religious unity, but in the Third Estate there was a warm debate. John Bodin, the famous publicist, though a Catholic, pleaded hard for tolerance. As finally pa.s.sed, the law demanded a return to the old religion, but added the proviso that the means taken should be ”gentle and pacific and without war.” So impossible was this in practice that the government was again obliged to issue a decree granting liberty of conscience and restricted liberty of wors.h.i.+p.
[Sidenote: 1577]
Under the oppression of the ruinous civil wars the people began to grow more and more restless. The king was extremely unpopular. Perhaps the people might have winked even at such outrages against decency as were perpetrated by the king had not their critical faculties been sharpened by the growing misery of their condition. The wars had bankrupted both them and the government, and the desperate expedients of the latter to raise money only increased the poverty {223} of the ma.s.ses. Every estate, every province, was urged to contribute as much as possible, and most of them replied, in humble and loyal tone, but firmly, begging for relief from the ruinous exactions. The sale of offices, of justice, of collectors.h.i.+ps of taxes, of the administration, of the army, of the public domain, was only less onerous than the sale of monopolies and inspectors.h.i.+ps of markets and ports. The only prosperous cla.s.s seemed to be the government agents and contractors.
In fact, for the first time in the history of France the people were becoming thoroughly disaffected and some of them semi-republican in feeling.
[Sidenote: 1584]
The king had no sons and when his only remaining brother died a new element of discord and perplexity was introduced in that the heir to the throne, Henry of Navarre, was a Protestant. Violent attacks on him were published in the pamphlet press. The League was revived in stronger form than before. Its head, Guise, selected as candidate for the throne the uncle of Henry of Navarre, Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon, a stupid and violent man of sixty-four. The king hastened to make terms with the League and commanded all Protestants to leave the country in six months. At this point the pope intervened to strengthen his cause by issuing the ”Bull of Deprivation” [Sidenote: 1585]
declaring Henry of Navarre incapable, as a heretic, of succeeding to the throne. Navarre at once denounced the bull as contrary to French law and invalid, and he was supported both by the Parlement of Paris and by some able pamphleteers. Hotman published his attack on the ”vain and blind fulmination” of the pontiff.
[Sidenote: Battle of Coutras, October 20, 1587]
An appeal to arms was inevitable. At the battle of Coutras, the Huguenots, led by Henry of Navarre, won their first victory. While this increased {224} Navarre's power and his popularity with his followers, the majority of the people rallied to the League. In the ”war of the three Henrys” as it was called, the king had more to fear from Henry of Guise than from the Huguenot. Cooped up at the Tuileries the monarch was under so irksome a restraint that he was finally obliged to regain freedom by flight, on May 12, 1588. The elections for the States General gave an enormous majority to the League. In an evil hour for himself the king resorted again to that much used weapon, a.s.sa.s.sination. By his order Guise was murdered. ”Now I am king,” he wrote with a sigh of relief. But he was mistaken. The League, more hostile than ever, swearing to avenge the death of its captain, was now frankly revolutionary.
It continued to exercise its authority under the leaders.h.i.+p of a Committee of Sixteen. These gentlemen purged the still royalist Parlement of Paris. By the hostility of the League the king was forced to an alliance with Henry of Navarre. This is interesting as showing how completely the position of the two leading parties had become reversed. The throne, once the strongest ally of the church, was now supported chiefly by the Huguenots who had formerly been in rebellion.
Indeed by this time ”the wars of religion” had become to a very large extent dynastic and social.
On August 1, 1589, the king was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a Dominican fanatic.
His death was preceded shortly by that of Catharine de' Medici.
[Sidenote: Henry IV, 1589-1610]
Henry IV was a man of thirty-five, of middle stature, but very hardy and brave. He was one of the most intelligent of the French kings, vigorous of brain as of body. Few could resist his delicate compliments and the promises he knew how to lavish. The glamour of his personality has survived even until now. In a song still popular he is called ”the gallant king who knew {225} how to fight, to make love and to drink.” He is also remembered for his wish that every peasant might have a fowl in his pot. His supreme desire was to see France, bleeding and impoverished by civil war, again united, strong and happy. He consistently subordinated religion to political ends. To him almost alone is due the final adoption of tolerance, not indeed as a natural right, but as a political expedient.
The difficulties with which he had to contend were enormous. The Catholics, headed by the Duke of Mayenne, a brother of Guise, agreed to recognize him for six months in order that he might have the opportunity of becoming reconciled to the church. But Mayenne, who wished to be elected king by the States General, soon commenced hostilities. The skirmish at Arques between the forces of Henry and Mayenne, resulting favorably to the former, was followed by the battle of Ivry. [Sidenote: Battle of Ivry, March 14, 1590] Henry, with two thousand horse and eight thousand foot, against eight thousand horse and twelve thousand foot of the League, addressed his soldiers in a stirring oration: ”G.o.d is with us. Behold his enemies and ours; behold your king. Charge! If your standards fail you, rally to my white plume; you will find it on the road to victory and honor.” At first the fortune of war went against the Huguenots, but the personal courage of the king, who, with ”a terrible white plume” in his helmet led his cavalry to the attack, wrested victory from the foe.
[Sidenote: Siege of Paris]
From Ivry Henry marched to Paris, the headquarters of the League. With thirteen thousand soldiers he besieged this town of 220,000 inhabitants, garrisoned by fifty thousand troops. With their usual self-sacrificing devotion, the people of Paris held out against the horrors of famine. The clergy aroused the fanaticism of the populace, promising heaven to those who died; women protested that they would eat {226} their children before they would surrender. With provisions for one month, Paris held out for four. Dogs, cats, rats, and gra.s.s were eaten; the bones of animals and even of dead people were ground up and used for flour; the skins of animals were devoured. Thirteen thousand persons died of hunger and twenty thousand of the fever brought on by lack of food. But even this miracle of fanaticism could not have saved the capital eventually, but for the timely invasion of France from the north by the Duke of Parma, who joined Mayenne on the Marne. Henry raised the siege to meet the new menace, but the campaign of 1591 was fruitless for both sides.
[Sidenote: Anarchy]
France seemed to be in a state of anarchy under the operation of many and various forces. Pope Gregory XIV tried to influence the Catholics to unite against Henry, but he was met by protests from the Parlements in the name of the Gallican Liberties. The ”Politiques” were ready to support any strong _de facto_ government, but could not find it. The cities hated the n.o.bles, and the republicans resented the ”courteous warfare” which either side was said to wage on the other, sparing each other's n.o.bles and slaughtering the commons.
[Sidenote: 1593]
At this point the States General were convoked at Paris by the League.
So many provinces refused to send deputies that there were only 128 members out of a normal 505. A serial publication by several authors, called the _Satyre Menippee_, poured ridicule on the pretentious of the national a.s.sembly. Various solutions of the deadlock were proposed.
Philip II of Spain offered to support Mayenne as Lieutenant General of France if the League would make his daughter, as the heiress through her mother, Elizabeth of Valois, queen. This being refused, Philip next proposed that the young Duke of Guise should marry his daughter {227} and become king. But this proposal also won little support. The enemies of Henry IV were conscious of his legitimate rights and jealous of foreign interference; the only thing that stood in the way of their recognizing him was his heresy.
[Sidenote: Henry's conversion]
Henry, finding that there seemed no other issue to an intolerable situation, at last resolved, though with much reluctance, to change his religion. On July 25, 1593, he abjured the Protestant faith, kneeling to the Archbishop of Bourges, and was received into the bosom of the Roman church. That his conversion was due entirely to the belief that ”Paris was worth a ma.s.s” is, of course, plain. Indeed, he frankly avowed that he still scrupled at some articles, such as purgatory, the wors.h.i.+p of the saints, and the power of the pope. And it must be remembered that his motives were not purely selfish. The alternative seemed to be indefinite civil war with all its horrors, and Henry deliberately but regretfully sacrificed his confessional convictions on the altar of his country.
The step was not immediately successful. The Huguenots were naturally enraged. The Catholics doubted the king's sincerity. At Paris the preachers of the League ridiculed the conversion from the pulpit. ”My dog,” sneered one of them, ”were you not at ma.s.s last Sunday? Come here and let us offer you the crown.” But the ”politiques” rallied to the throne and the League rapidly melted away. The _Satyre Menippee_, supporting the interests of Henry, did much to turn public opinion in his favor.
A further impression was made by his coronation at Chartres in 1594.