Volume I Part 33 (2/2)
Little was effected in the direction of peace. But Cardinal Lorraine received valuable hints touching the best method for humbling the enemies of his house. Of these no one was more formidable than D'Andelot, who had distinguished himself greatly in the war on the Flemish borders. This young n.o.bleman, the Bishop of Arras affirmed, had been found, during the captivity from which he had recently escaped, to be infected with the contagion of the ”new doctrines.” Since his return to France, he had even ventured to send a heretical volume to console his brother, the admiral, in prison. The cardinal, jealous of the houses of Chatillon and Montmorency, promptly reported to the king the story of D'Andelot's defection from the faith. His brother, the Duke of Guise, loudly declared that, although he was ready to march to the siege of Thionville, he could entertain no hope of success if D'Andelot were suffered to accompany him, in command of the French infantry.[664]
[Sidenote: D'Andelot in Brittany.]
The sympathy of the younger Chatillon was daily becoming more openly avowed. On a recent visit to Brittany (April, 1558), he had taken with him Fleury and Loiseleur, Protestant ministers. For the first time, the westernmost province of France heard the doctrines preached a generation before in Meaux. The crowd of provincial n.o.bles, flocking to pay their respects to D'Andelot and his wife, Claude de Rieux, heiress of vast estates in this region, were both surprised and gratified at enjoying the opportunity of listening to preachers whose voice had penetrated to almost every nook of France save this. So palpable were the effects, that D'Andelot's brief tour in Brittany furnished additional grounds for Henry's suspicions respecting the young n.o.bleman's soundness in the faith.[665]
[Sidenote: D'Andelot summoned to appear before the king.]
[Sidenote: His manly defence.]
D'Andelot was summoned to appear before the king and clear himself of the charges preferred against him. Henry is said, indeed, to have sent previously D'Andelot's brother, the Cardinal of Chatillon, and his cousin, Marshal Montmorency, the constable's eldest son, to urge him to make a submissive and satisfactory explanation. But their exertions were futile. Henry began the conversation by reminding D'Andelot of the great intimacy he had always allowed him and the love he bore him. He told him that he had expected of him anything rather than a revolt from the religion of his prince and an adherence to new doctrines. And he announced as the princ.i.p.al points in his conduct which he condemned, that he had allowed the ”Lutheran” views to be preached on his estates, that he had frequented the _Pre aux Clercs_, that he absented himself from the ma.s.s, and that he had sent ”books from Geneva” to his brother, the admiral, in his captivity. D'Andelot replied with frankness and intrepidity. He professed grat.i.tude for the many favors he had received from the monarch, a grat.i.tude he had never tired of making known by perilling life and property in that prince's cause. But the doctrine he had caused to be preached was good and holy, and such as his forefathers had held. He denied having been at the _Pre aux Clercs_, but avowed his entire approval of the service of praise in which the mult.i.tude had there engaged. As for his absence from the ma.s.s, he thanked G.o.d for removing the veil of ignorance that once covered his eyes, and declared that, with the Almighty's favor, he would never again be present at its celebration. In fine, he begged Henry to regard his life and property as being entirely at the royal disposition, but to leave him a free conscience. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who alone of the courtiers was present, here interposed to warn the speaker of the bad way into which he had entered; but D'Andelot replied by appealing to the prelate's own conscience in testimony of the truth of the doctrines he had once favored, but now, from ambitious motives, persecuted.
[Sidenote: Henry orders him to be imprisoned.]
[Sidenote: Embarra.s.sment of the court.]
Greatly displeased with so frank an avowal of sentiments that would have cost one less n.o.bly connected his life, Henry now pointed to the collar of the ”Order of St. Michael” around D'Andelot's neck, and exclaimed: ”I did not give you this order to be so employed; for you swore to attend ma.s.s and to follow my religion.” ”I knew not what it is to be a Christian,” responded D'Andelot; ”nor, had G.o.d then touched my heart as He now has, should I have accepted it on such a condition.”[666] Unable any longer to endure the boldness of D'Andelot--who richly deserved the t.i.tle he popularly bore, _the fearless knight_[667]--Henry angrily commanded him to leave his presence. The young man was arrested and taken by the archers of the guard to Meaux, whence he was subsequently removed to Melun.[668] The position of the court was, however, an embarra.s.sing one. Henry manifested no desire to retain long as a prisoner, much less to bring to the _estrapade_, the nephew of the constable, and a warrior who had himself held the honorable post of Colonel-General of the French infantry, and was second to none in reputation for valor and skill. The most trifling concession would be sufficient to secure the scion of the powerful families of Chatillon and Montmorency. Even this concession, however, could not for a considerable time be gained. D'Andelot resisted every temptation, and his correspondence breathed the most uncompromising determination.
[Sidenote: D'Andelot's constancy.]
[Sidenote: His temporary weakness.]
In a long and admirable letter to Henry, it is true, he humbly asked pardon for the offence his words had given. And he begged the king to believe that, ”save in the matter of obedience to G.o.d and of conscience,” he would ever faithfully expose life and means to fulfil the royal commands. But he also reiterated his inability to attend the ma.s.s, and plainly denounced as blasphemy the approval of any other sacrifice than that made upon the Cross.[669] To the ministers of Paris he wrote, expressing a resolution equally strong; and the letters of the latter, as well as of the great Genevese reformer, were well calculated to sustain his courage. But D'Andelot was not proof against the sophistries of Ruze, a doctor of the Sorbonne and confessor of the king.
Moved by the entreaties of his wife,[670] of his uncle the constable, and of his brother the Cardinal of Chatillon, he was induced, after two months of imprisonment, to consent to be present, but without taking any part, at a celebration of the ma.s.s. By the same priest D'Andelot sent a submissive message to the king, to which the bearer, we have reason to believe, attributed a meaning quite different from that which D'Andelot had intended to convey. The n.o.ble prisoner was at once released; but the voice of conscience, uniting with that of his faithful friends, soon led him to repent bitterly of his temporary, but scandalous weakness. From this time forward he resumes the character of the intrepid defender of the Protestant doctrines--a character of which he never again divests himself.[671]
[Sidenote: The b.l.o.o.d.y decemvirate.]
[Sidenote: Anxiety for peace.]
Meanwhile, Henry and his adviser, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who really little deserved the reproaches showered on them by the Pope, took steps to encounter the new a.s.saults which the reformed doctrines were making on the established church in every quarter of the kingdom. If the Parliament of Paris began to exhibit reluctance to shed more innocent blood, it was far otherwise with the decemvirate to whom the three cardinals had delegated their inquisitorial functions, and whose power was supreme.[672] But, to the prosecution of the work of exterminating heresy in France, the continuance of the war with Spain offered insurmountable obstacles. It diverted the attention of the government from the multiplication of ”Lutheran” churches and communities. It hampered the court, by compelling it to mitigate its severities, in consequence of the importunate intercessions of its indispensable allies, the Protestant princes across the Rhine and the confederated cantons of Switzerland. Besides, the war had borne no fruit but disappointment. If Calais had been recovered, St. Quentin and other strongholds, which were the key to Paris, had been lost. The brilliant capture of Thionville (on the twenty-second of June, 1558) had been more than balanced by the disastrous rout of Marshal de Thermes at Gravelines (on the thirteenth of July).[673]
The almost uninterrupted hostilities of the last twelve years had not only exhausted the few thousand crowns which Henry had found in the treasury at his accession to the throne, but had reduced the French exchequer to as low an ebb as that of the Spanish king.[674] His antagonist was as anxious as Henry to reduce his expenditures, and obtain leisure for crus.h.i.+ng heresy in the Low Countries and wherever else it had shown itself in his vast dominions. Constable Montmorency, too, employed his powerful influence to secure a peace which would restore him liberty, and the place in the royal favor likely to be usurped by the Guises, if his absence from court were to last much longer. And Paul the Fourth was now as earnestly desirous of effecting a reconciliation between the contending monarchs--that they might unitedly engage in the holy work of persecution--as he had been a few years before to embroil them in war.[675]
[Sidenote: The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, April 3, 1559.]
The common desire for peace found expression in the appointment of plenipotentiaries, who met, about the middle of October, in the monastery of Cercamps, near Cambray. France was represented by Montmorency, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Marshal St. Andre, Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, and Claude de l'Aubespine, Secretary of State. The Duke of Alva, William of Orange, Ruy-Gomez de Silva, the Bishop of Arras, and Viglius appeared on the part of Philip. England and Savoy were also represented by their envoys. After preliminary discussions, the conference adjourned, to meet in February of the succeeding year at Cateau-Cambresis.[676] Here, on the third of April, 1559, was concluded a treaty of peace that terminated the struggle for ascendancy in which France and Spain had been engaged, with brief intermissions, ever since the accession of Francis the First and Charles the Fifth.
So far as France was concerned, it was an inglorious close. By a single stroke of the pen Henry gave up nearly two hundred places that had been captured by the French from their enemies during the last thirty years.
In return he received Ham, St. Quentin, and three other strongholds held by Philip on his northern frontier. All the fruits of many years of war and an infinite loss of life and treasure[677] were surrendered in an instant for a paltry price. The Duke of Savoy recovered states which had long been incorporated in the French dominions. The jurisdictions of two parliaments of France became foreign territory. The inhabitants of Turin were left to forget the language they had begun to speak well. The King of Spain could now come to the very gates of Lyons, which before the peace had stood, as it were, in the middle of the kingdom, but was now turned into a border city.[678]
[Sidenote: Sacrifice of French interests.]
Such were the concessions Henry was willing to make for the purpose of obtaining peace abroad, that he might turn his arms against his own subjects. Philip, if equally zealous, was certainly too prudent to exhibit his eagerness so clearly to his opponent. The interests of France had been sacrificed to the bigotry of her monarch and the selfishness of his advisers. When the terms of the agreement were made known, they awakened in every true Frenchman's breast a feeling of shame and disgust.[679] Henry himself manifested embarra.s.sment when attempting to justify his course.[680] Abroad the improbable tidings were received with incredulity.[681]
[Sidenote: Was there a secret treaty for the extermination of the Protestants?]
The treaty of Cateau-Cambresis contained but one article on the subject of religion--that which bound the monarchs of Spain and France to put forth their united exertions for securing a ”holy universal council.”
But common report had it that the omission of more detailed reference to the subject lying so near to the heart of both kings was fully compensated by a secret treaty taken up exclusively with this subject.[682] That treaty was represented as developing a plan which contemplated nothing less than the entire and violent destruction of heresy by the united efforts of their Catholic and Very Christian Majesties. By a single concerted ma.s.sacre of all dissidents, the whole of Europe was to be brought back to its allegiance to the see of St.
Peter.[683] Unfortunately, the secret treaty, if it ever existed, has never come to light; nor have we the testimony of a single person who pretends to have seen it, or to be acquainted with its contents. Indeed, the circ.u.mstances of the case seem to render such a united effort as the conjectural treaty supposes either Quixotic or superfluous--Quixotic, if the two monarchs, without the concurrence of the empire, whose crown had pa.s.sed from Charles, not to his son Philip, but to his brother Ferdinand, should inst.i.tute a scheme for a general crusade against the professors of the doctrines that had already gained a firm foothold in one-half of Germany, in Great Britain, and the Scandinavian lands of Northern Europe; superfluous, if it respected only the dominions of the high contracting powers. For the purpose of Henry was no less clearly and repeatedly proclaimed than that of Philip. No subject of either crown could ignore at whom the first blow would be struck, after the pressure of the foreign war had been removed.[684]
Nor, in the execution of their plans, could either monarch imagine himself to stand in need of the a.s.sistance of his royal brother; for it was not an open war to be carried on, but as yet a struggle with _persons_, numerous without doubt, but, nevertheless, _suspected_ rather than _convicted_ of heresy, and discovered, for the most part, only by diligent search.
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